IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bog/wpaper/201.html

Who exports high-quality products? Some empirical regularities from Greek exporting firms

Author

Listed:
  • Sarantis Kalyvitis

    (Athens University of Economics and Business)

Abstract

This study assesses the quality of Greek exports and links the estimates with exporters’ characteristics. Export quality in manufacturing is estimated to have fallen by 1% per year on average for the period 1998-2010, but recovered in 2011 and 2012 when export quality displayed a cumulative rise of 25.7%, yielding a cumulative rise of 9.2% for the entire period 1998-2012. Export quality in agriculture displays a slightly upward trend with the average annual rise over the period 1998-2012 amounting to 1.6%. Linking the quality estimates at the product level with exporting firms in the manufacturing sector shows that higher product quality is associated with firms that have a higher share of their wage bill paid to skilled workers. This positive relationship stems from firms with higher skilled to unskilled employment ratios, rather than higher wage skill premia, and is more pronounced in large and rich destinations.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarantis Kalyvitis, 2015. "Who exports high-quality products? Some empirical regularities from Greek exporting firms," Working Papers 201, Bank of Greece.
    • Handle: RePEc:bog:wpaper:201
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bankofgreece.gr/BogEkdoseis/Paper2015201.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicolas Berman & Philippe Martin & Thierry Mayer, 2012. "How do Different Exporters React to Exchange Rate Changes?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 437-492.
    2. Christian Henn & Mr. Chris Papageorgiou & Mr. Nikola Spatafora, 2013. "Export Quality in Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2013/108, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Kristian Behrens & Gregory Corcos & Giordano Mion, 2013. "Trade Crisis? What Trade Crisis?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 702-709, May.
    4. Eric A. Verhoogen, 2008. "Trade, Quality Upgrading, and Wage Inequality in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 489-530.
    5. Rauch, James E., 1999. "Networks versus markets in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 7-35, June.
    6. Kalina Manova & Zhiwei Zhang, 2012. "Export Prices Across Firms and Destinations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 379-436.
    7. Lionel Fontagné & Guillaume Gaulier & Soledad Zignago, 2008. "Specialization across varieties and North–South competition [‘Multi-Product Firms and Trade Liberalization’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 23(53), pages 52-91.
    8. Robert C. Feenstra & John Romalis, 2014. "International Prices and Endogenous Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 477-527.
    9. Matthieu Crozet & Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2012. "Quality Sorting and Trade: Firm-level Evidence for French Wine," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 609-644.
    10. Harrigan, James & Ma, Xiangjun & Shlychkov, Victor, 2015. "Export prices of U.S. firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 100-111.
    11. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2007. "Beyond Icebergs: Towards a Theory of Biased Globalization," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(1), pages 237-253.
    12. David Hummels & Peter J. Klenow, 2005. "The Variety and Quality of a Nation's Exports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 704-723, June.
    13. Peter K. Schott, 2004. "Across-Product Versus Within-Product Specialization in International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 647-678.
    14. Ricardo Hausmann & Jason Hwang & Dani Rodrik, 2007. "What you export matters," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, March.
    15. 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.
    16. David Atkin & Azam Chaudhry & Shamyla Chaudhry & Amit K. Khandelwal & Eric Verhoogen, 2015. "Markup and Cost Dispersion across Firms: Direct Evidence from Producer Surveys in Pakistan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 537-544, May.
    17. Hallak, Juan Carlos, 2006. "Product quality and the direction of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 238-265, January.
    18. Irene Brambilla & Daniel Lederman & Guido Porto, 2012. "Exports, Export Destinations, and Skills," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3406-3438, December.
    19. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    20. Hylke Vandenbussche, 2014. "Quality in Exports," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 528, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    21. 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.
    22. Costas Arkolakis, 2010. "Market Penetration Costs and the New Consumers Margin in International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1151-1199.
    23. Amit Khandelwal, 2010. "The Long and Short (of) Quality Ladders," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1450-1476.
    24. Johnson, Robert C., 2012. "Trade and prices with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 43-56.
    25. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00610947 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Juan Carlos Hallak & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Estimating Cross-Country Differences in Product Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 417-474.
    27. Maurice Kugler & Eric Verhoogen, 2012. "Prices, Plant Size, and Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 307-339.
    28. Richard Baldwin & James Harrigan, 2011. "Zeros, Quality, and Space: Trade Theory and Trade Evidence," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 60-88, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amadeo Navarro Zapata & María Arrazola & José Hevia, 2024. "Determinants of High-tech Exports: New Evidence from OECD Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(1), pages 1103-1117, March.

    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. Sofia Anyfantaki & Sarantis Kalyvitis & Margarita Katsimi & Eirini Thomaidou, 2018. "Export pricing at the firm level with panel data," Working Papers 241, Bank of Greece.
    2. Peluffo Adriana & Scasso Juan, 2023. "The Role of Trade Partners on Product Quality: The case of Uruguay," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4681, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    3. Crinò, Rosario & Ogliari, Laura, 2017. "Financial imperfections, product quality, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 63-84.
    4. Adriana Peluffo & Juan Ignacio Scasso, 2016. "Destination and source countries: Do they have a role on product quality?," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 16-10, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    5. Brambilla, Irene & Porto, Guido G., 2016. "High-income export destinations, quality and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 21-35.
    6. Crinò, Rosario & Ogliari, Laura, 2015. "Financial Frictions, Product Quality, and International Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 10555, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Antoniades, Alexis, 2015. "Heterogeneous Firms, Quality, and Trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 263-273.
    8. Chen, Natalie & Juvenal, Luciana, 2022. "Markups, quality, and trade costs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    9. Chen, Natalie & Juvenal, Luciana, 2016. "Quality, trade, and exchange rate pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 61-80.
    10. Ge, Ying & Lai, Huiwen & Zhu, Susan Chun, 2015. "Multinational price premium," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 181-199.
    11. Irene Brambilla & Nicolas Depetris Chauvin & Guido Porto, 2015. "Wage and Employment Gains from Exports: Evidence from Developing Countries," Working Papers 2015-28, CEPII research center.
    12. Jennie Bai & Jia Guo & Benjamin R. Mandel, 2013. "Going global: markups and product quality in the Chinese art market," Staff Reports 614, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    13. 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.
    14. Juan de Lucio & Raúl Mínguez & Asier Minondo & Francisco Requena, 2018. "The variation of export prices across and within firms," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 154(2), pages 327-346, May.
    15. Lugovskyy, Volodymyr & Skiba, Alexandre, 2016. "Positive and negative effects of distance on export prices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 155-181.
    16. Martin, Julien & Mayneris, Florian, 2015. "High-end variety exporters defying gravity: Micro facts and aggregate implications," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 55-71.
    17. Kan Yue, 2021. "Estimating exporter's quality: Do importers agree on rankings?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 462-484, February.
    18. Flach, Lisandra & Unger, Florian, 2022. "Quality and gravity in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    19. Choi, ByeongHwa, 2023. "The impact of financial development on innovation-based exports: Do all firms benefit equally?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 81-100.
    20. Christopher Hansman & Jonas Hjort & Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Matthieu Teachout, 2020. "Vertical Integration, Supplier Behavior, and Quality Upgrading among Exporters," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3570-3625.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bog:wpaper:201. 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.

    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: Anastasios Rizos (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boggvgr.html .

    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.