IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v82y2010i2p99-111.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The quality of a firm's exports: Where you export to matters

Author

Listed:
  • Bastos, Paulo
  • Silva, Joana

Abstract

What drives export quality? Using Portuguese firm-level data on exports by product and destination market, we find that f.o.b. unit values increase systematically with distance, and tend to be higher in shipments to richer nations. These relationships reflect not only the sorting of firms across markets, but also the within-firm variation of unit values across destinations. Within product categories, higher-productivity firms tend to ship greater quantities at higher prices to a given market, consistent with higher quality. In addition, firm productivity tends to magnify the positive effect of distance on within-product unit values, suggesting that high-productivity, high-quality firms are more able to serve difficult markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Bastos, Paulo & Silva, Joana, 2010. "The quality of a firm's exports: Where you export to matters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 99-111, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:82:y:2010:i:2:p:99-111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-1996(10)00063-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Di Comite, Francesco & Thisse, Jacques-François & Vandenbussche, Hylke, 2014. "Verti-zontal differentiation in export markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 50-66.
    2. Maria Bas & Vanessa Strauss-Kahn, 2013. "Input-Trade Liberalization, Export Prices and Quality Upgrading," Sciences Po publications 2013-13, Sciences Po.
    3. Irene Brambilla & Daniel Lederman & Guido Porto, 2019. "Exporting firms and the demand for skilled tasks," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(2), pages 763-783, May.
    4. Bas, Maria & Strauss-Kahn, Vanessa, 2015. "Input-trade liberalization, export prices and quality upgrading," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 250-262.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bastos, Paulo & Silva, Joana, 2010. "The quality of a firm's exports: Where you export to matters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 99-111, November.
    2. E.O. Annette Pelkmans-Balaoing & Gerrit Hugo van Heuvelen & Jean-Marie Viaene, 2016. "Firm Export Survival: Micro-Evidence from the Philippines," CESifo Working Paper Series 6270, CESifo.
    3. Flach, Lisandra & Unger, Florian, 2022. "Quality and gravity in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Miao, Zhuang & Li, Yifan, 2017. "Trade Scopes across Destinations: Evidence from Chinese Firm," MPRA Paper 80863, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Aug 2017.
    5. Martha Denisse Pierola & Ana Margarida Fernandes & Thomas Farole, 2018. "The role of imports for exporter performance in Peru," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 550-572, February.
    6. Gideon Ndubuisi & Solomon Owusu, 2021. "How important is GVC participation to export upgrading?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(10), pages 2887-2908, October.
    7. Cecília Hornok & Balázs Muraközy, 2019. "Markups of Exporters and Importers: Evidence from Hungary," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(3), pages 1303-1333, July.
    8. Tan, Yong & An, Liwei, 2019. "Quota removal and firm-level offshoring: Theory and evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 225-239.
    9. Ling-Yun He & Liang Wang, 2019. "Import Liberalization of Intermediates and Environment: Empirical Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-15, May.
    10. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2022. "Do Aid for Trade Flows Help Reduce the Shadow Economy in Recipient Countries?," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-33, December.
    11. Defever, Fabrice & Imbruno, Michele & Kneller, Richard, 2020. "Trade liberalization, input intermediaries and firm productivity: Evidence from China," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Giordano, Claire & Lopez-Garcia, Paloma, 2019. "Firm heterogeneity and trade in EU countries: a cross-country analysis," Occasional Paper Series 225, European Central Bank.
    13. Johannes Boehm, 2020. "The Impact of Contract Enforcement Costs on Outsourcing and Aggregate Productivity," SciencePo Working papers hal-03566762, HAL.
    14. Beverelli, Cosimo & Fiorini, Matteo & Hoekman, Bernard, 2017. "Services trade policy and manufacturing productivity: The role of institutions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 166-182.
    15. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2022. "Effect of the Duration of Membership in the GATT/WTO on Human Development in Developed and Developing Countries," EconStor Preprints 265061, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    16. Ana Maria Santacreu & Liliana Varela, 2018. "Innovation and the Patterns of Trade: A Firm-Level Analysis," 2018 Meeting Papers 303, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Sytsma, Tobias, 2019. "Rules of Origin Liberalization with Multi-Product Firms: Theory and Evidence from Bangladeshi Apparel Exporters," MPRA Paper 95956, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Johannes Boehm & Ezra Oberfield, 2020. "Misallocation in the Market for Inputs: Enforcement and the Organization of Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 135(4), pages 2007-2058.
    19. Manova, Kalina & Yu, Zhihong, 2017. "Multi-product firms and product quality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 116-137.
    20. Huang, Geng & He, Ling-Yun & Lin, Xi, 2023. "Deterioration or improvement? Intermediate product import and enterprises' environmental performance," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 139-150.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:82:y:2010:i:2:p:99-111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505552 .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505552 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.