Rethinking the import-productivity nexus for Italian manufacturing

We provide evidence on the firm-level productivity effects of imports of intermediates. Exploiting a large panel of Italian manufacturing firms we are able to separately test the role of offshoring to high and low income countries. Contrary to our expectations, no significant impact is found out for purchases from developed countries, while firmefficiency seems to be positively affected by imported inputs from developing countries. Anyway, we prove that this result may be driven by the omission of another important firm internationalisation strategy, the export activity. Due to the strict linkage existing between export and import activity at firm level, we investigate whether the significant role of offshoring still stay after controlling for the firms' sales in foreign markets. Positive effects of offshoring disappear, while we confirm the existence of learning-by-exporting, already displayed in literature for Italy.