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

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.