IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/doi10.1086-701607.html

Exporting and Plant-Level Efficiency Gains: It's in the Measure

Author

Listed:
  • Alvaro Garcia-Marin
  • Nico Voigtländer

Abstract

While there is strong evidence that more productive plants select into exporting, the literature has struggled to identify export-related efficiency gains within plants. We show that this is due to the common use of revenue-based productivity measures (TFPR): more efficient producers tend to charge lower prices, leading to a downward bias in TFPR. Using census panels of Chilean, Colombian, and Mexican manufacturing plants, we find sizable efficiency gains after export entry based on efficiency measures that are not affected by output prices. Evidence suggests that a complementarity between exporting and investment in technology is an important driver of these gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Alvaro Garcia-Marin & Nico Voigtländer, 2019. "Exporting and Plant-Level Efficiency Gains: It's in the Measure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1777-1825.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/701607
    DOI: 10.1086/701607
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/701607
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/701607
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/701607?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/701607. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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.