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Do outliers and unobserved heterogeneity explain the exporter productivity premium? Evidence from France, Germany and the United Kingdom

Author

Listed:
  • Joachim Wagner

    (Leuphana University Lueneburg)

  • Yama Temouri

    (Aston Business School)

Abstract

A stylized fact from the literature on the Micro-econometrics of International Trade and a central implication of the heterogeneous firm models from the New New Trade Theory is that exporters are more productive than non-exporters. It is argued that this exporter productivity premium is due to extra costs of exporting that can be covered only by more productive firms. However, in recent papers that control for extreme observations and unobserved firm heterogeneity by applying a highly robust fixed-effects estimator, no such exporter productivity premium is found for firms from manufacturing and services industries in Germany. This paper uses enterprise level panel data for France, Germany and the United Kingdom from 2003 to 2008 to systematically investigate the role of outliers and unobserved firm heterogeneity for estimates of the exporter productivity premium. We report that outliers do have an influence on the estimated exporter productivity premium. We argue that the vanishing exporter premium in robust fixed effects estimations that is reported for all three countries is caused by characteristics of firms that start or stop to export over the period under investigation, and that are not representative for the bulk of firms that either export or not.

Suggested Citation

  • Joachim Wagner & Yama Temouri, 2013. "Do outliers and unobserved heterogeneity explain the exporter productivity premium? Evidence from France, Germany and the United Kingdom," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 1931-1940.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00437
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Stephen J. Redding, 2011. "Theories of Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 77-105, September.
    2. Verardi Vincenzo & Wagner Joachim, 2011. "Robust Estimation of Linear Fixed Effects Panel Data Models with an Application to the Exporter Productivity Premium," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(4), pages 546-557, August.
    3. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    4. Joachim Wagner, 2016. "From Estimation Results to Stylized Facts: Twelve Recommendations for Empirical Research in International Activities of Heterogeneous Firms," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Microeconometrics of International Trade, chapter 15, pages 479-514, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Joachim Wagner, 2016. "Exports and Productivity: A Survey of the Evidence from Firm Level Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Microeconometrics of International Trade, chapter 1, pages 3-41, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Vincenzo Verardi & Alice McCathie, 2012. "The S-estimator of multivariate location and scatter in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(2), pages 299-307, June.
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    8. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 283-313, July.
    9. Joachim Wagner, 2016. "Trading Many Goods with Many Countries: Exporters and Importers from German Manufacturing Industries," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Microeconometrics of International Trade, chapter 14, pages 455-476, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Elhanan Helpman, 2006. "Trade, FDI, and the Organization of Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 589-630, September.
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    16. Alexander Vogel & Joachim Wagner, 2021. "Robust Estimates of Exporter Productivity Premia in German Business Services Enterprises," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Joachim Wagner (ed.), MICROECONOMETRIC STUDIES OF FIRMS’ IMPORTS AND EXPORTS Advanced Methods of Analysis and Evidence from German Enterprises, chapter 14, pages 239-263, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Peter Gal & Alexander Hijzen & Zoltan Wolf, 2012. "The Role of Institutions and Firm Heterogeneity for Labour Market Adjustment: Cross-Country Firm-Level Evidence," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 134, OECD Publishing.
    18. Vincenzo Verardi & Joachim Wagner, 2021. "Productivity Premia for German Manufacturing Firms Exporting to the Euro-area and Beyond: First Evidence from Robust Fixed Effects Estimations," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Joachim Wagner (ed.), MICROECONOMETRIC STUDIES OF FIRMS’ IMPORTS AND EXPORTS Advanced Methods of Analysis and Evidence from German Enterprises, chapter 7, pages 87-109, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
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    Cited by:

    1. Joachim Wagner, 2014. "Low-productive exporters are high-quality exporters. Evidence from Germany," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 745-756.
    2. Foster-McGregor, Neil & Isaksson, Anders & Kaulich, Florian, 2014. "Learning-by-exporting versus self-selection: New evidence for 19 sub-Saharan African countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 212-214.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Export; productivity premium; outlier; unobserved heterogeneity; robust estimation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade

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