IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/27986.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Dynamic Impact of Exporting on Firm R&D Investment

Author

Listed:
  • Florin G. Maican
  • Matilda Orth
  • Mark J. Roberts
  • Van Anh Vuong

Abstract

This article estimates a dynamic structural model of firm R&D investment in twelve Swedish manufacturing industries and uses it to measure rates of return to R&D and to simulate the impact of trade restrictions on the investment incentives. R&D spending is found to have a larger impact on firm productivity in the export market than in the domestic market. Export market profits are a substantial source of the expected return to R&D. Counterfactual simulations show that trade restrictions lower both the expected return to R&D and R&D investment level, thus reducing an important source of the dynamic gains from trade. A 20 percent tariff on Swedish exports reduces the expected benefits of R&D by an average of 32.2 percent and lowers the amount of R&D spending by 13.9 percent in the high-tech industries. The corresponding reductions in the low-tech industries are 30.4 and 8.9 percent, respectively. R&D adjustments in response to export tariffs mainly occur on the intensive, rather than the extensive, margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Florin G. Maican & Matilda Orth & Mark J. Roberts & Van Anh Vuong, 2020. "The Dynamic Impact of Exporting on Firm R&D Investment," NBER Working Papers 27986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27986
    Note: IO ITI PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w27986.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ilke Van Beveren & Hylke Vandenbussche, 2010. "Product and process innovation and firms' decision to export," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 3-24.
    2. Pian Shu & Claudia Steinwender, 2019. "The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Firm Productivity and Innovation," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(1), pages 39-68.
    3. Sims,Christopher A. (ed.), 1994. "Advances in Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521444606, January.
    4. Chad Syverson, 2011. "What Determines Productivity?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 326-365, June.
    5. Xulia González & Jordi Jaumandreu & Consuelo Pazo, 2005. "Barriers to Innovation and Subsidy Effectiveness," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 930-949, Winter.
    6. Grossman, Gene M. & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "Technology and trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1279-1337, Elsevier.
    7. Takalo, Tuomas & Tanayama, Tanja & Toivanen, Otto, 2017. "Welfare effects of R&D support policies," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 30/2017, Bank of Finland.
    8. Mark J Roberts & Daniel Yi Xu & Xiaoyan Fan & Shengxing Zhang, 2018. "The Role of Firm Factors in Demand, Cost, and Export Market Selection for Chinese Footwear Producers," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 2429-2461.
    9. Ackerberg, Daniel & Lanier Benkard, C. & Berry, Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 2007. "Econometric Tools for Analyzing Market Outcomes," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 63, Elsevier.
    10. Pere Arqué-Castells & Pierre Mohnen, 2015. "Sunk Costs, Extensive R&D Subsidies and Permanent Inducement Effects," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(3), pages 458-494, September.
    11. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_030 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Carlos Daniel Santos, 2017. "Sunk Costs of R&D, Trade and Productivity: The Moulds Industry Case," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(603), pages 1626-1664, August.
    13. Nicholas Bloom & Mirko Draca & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Trade Induced Technical Change? The Impact of Chinese Imports on Innovation, IT and Productivity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(1), pages 87-117.
    14. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum & Francis Kramarz, 2011. "An Anatomy of International Trade: Evidence From French Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1453-1498, September.
    15. Sims,Christopher A. (ed.), 1994. "Advances in Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521444590, January.
    16. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    17. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Mairesse, Jacques & Mohnen, Pierre, 2010. "Measuring the Returns to R&D," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1033-1082, Elsevier.
    18. Andrew Atkeson & Ariel Tomás Burstein, 2010. "Innovation, Firm Dynamics, and International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 433-484, June.
    19. Li, Tong, 2010. "Indirect inference in structural econometric models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(1), pages 120-128, July.
    20. Juan A. Máñez & Maria E. Rochina-Barrachina & Juan A. Sanchis-Llopis, 2015. "The Dynamic Linkages Among Exports, R&D and Productivity," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 583-612, April.
    21. Sascha Becker & Peter Egger, 2013. "Endogenous product versus process innovation and a firm’s propensity to export," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 329-354, February.
    22. Tuomas Takalo & Tanja Tanayama & Otto Toivanen, 2013. "Estimating the Benefits of Targeted R&D Subsidies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 255-272, March.
    23. 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.
    24. Bernard, Andrew B. & Jensen, J. Bradford, 1997. "Exporters, skill upgrading, and the wage gap," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 3-31, February.
    25. Hall, Bronwyn & Van Reenen, John, 2000. "How effective are fiscal incentives for R&D? A review of the evidence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4-5), pages 449-469, April.
    26. Bee Yan Aw & Mark J. Roberts & Tor Winston, 2007. "Export Market Participation, Investments in R&D and Worker Training, and the Evolution of Firm Productivity," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 83-104, January.
    27. Alla Lileeva & Daniel Trefler, 2010. "Improved Access to Foreign Markets Raises Plant-level Productivity…For Some Plants," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1051-1099.
    28. Bettina Peters & Mark J. Roberts & Van Anh Vuong & Helmut Fryges, 2017. "Estimating dynamic R&D choice: an analysis of costs and long-run benefits," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(2), pages 409-437, May.
    29. Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), 2010. "Handbook of the Economics of Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    30. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1993. "Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262570971, April.
    31. 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.
    32. Ulrich Doraszelski & Jordi Jaumandreu, 2013. "R&D and Productivity: Estimating Endogenous Productivity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1338-1383.
    33. Jože Damijan & Črt Kostevc & Matija Rojec, 2017. "Exporting status and success in innovation: evidence from CIS micro data for EU countries," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(5), pages 585-611, July.
    34. Melitz, Marc J. & Burstein, Ariel, 2013. "Trade Liberalization and Firm Dynamics," Scholarly Articles 34557509, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    35. Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud, Matthieu Lequien, Marc J. Melitz, 2018. "The Impact of Exports on Innovation: Theory and Evidence," Working papers 678, Banque de France.
    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. Maican, Florin & Orth, Matilda, 2021. "Entry Regulations and Product Variety in Retail," CEPR Discussion Papers 15992, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Robin Kaiji Gong & Yao Amber Li & Kalina Manova & Stephen Teng Sun & Kalina B. Manova, 2023. "Tickets to the Global Market: First US Patent Awards and Chinese Firm Exports," CESifo Working Paper Series 10790, CESifo.
    3. Liu, Mengxiao & Wang, Luhang & Yi, Yimin, 2022. "Quality Innovation, Cost Innovation, Export, and Firm Productivity Evolution: Evidence from the Chinese Electronics Industry," MPRA Paper 113270, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Peters, Bettina & Roberts, Mark J. & Vuong, Van Anh, 2022. "Firm R&D investment and export market exposure," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    2. Vuong, Van Anh & Maican , Florin & Orth, Matilda & Roberts, Mark, 2016. "R&D Dynamics and Its Impact on Productivity and Export Demand in Swedish Manufacturing," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145945, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Dzhumashev, Ratbek & Mishra, Vinod & Smyth, Russell, 2016. "Exporting, R&D investment and firm survival in the Indian IT sector," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1-19.
    4. Maican, Florin & Orth, Matilda, 2021. "Entry Regulations and Product Variety in Retail," CEPR Discussion Papers 15992, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Redha Fares, 2022. "Bankruptcy, Performance and Market Selection: Evidence from Firms in France," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph22-01 edited by Claude Mathieu.
    6. Jaan Masso & Amaresh K Tiwari, 2021. "Productivity Implications Of R&D, Innovation And Capital Accumulation For Incumbents And Entrants: The Case Of Estonia," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 130, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    7. Jesse Perla & Christopher Tonetti & Michael E. Waugh, 2021. "Equilibrium Technology Diffusion, Trade, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 73-128, January.
    8. Bee Yan Aw & Mark J. Roberts & Daniel Yi Xu, 2011. "R&D Investment, Exporting, and Productivity Dynamics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1312-1344, June.
    9. James Harrigan & Ariell Reshef & Farid Toubal, 2018. "Techies, Trade, and Skill-Biased Productivity," NBER Working Papers 25295, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Toivanen, Otto & Takalo, Tuomas & Tanayama, Tanja, 2017. "Welfare Effects of R&D Support Policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 12155, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Stiebale, Joel & Vencappa, Dev, 2022. "Import competition and vertical integration: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    12. Liu, Runjuan & Rosell, Carlos, 2013. "Import competition, multi-product firms, and basic innovation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 220-234.
    13. Myeongwan Kim, 2019. "Does Import Competition Reduce Domestic Innovation? Evidence from the 'China Stock' and Firm-Level Data on Canadian Manufacturing," CSLS Research Reports 2019-03, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    14. Letizia Montinari & Massimo Riccaboni & Stefano Schiavo, 2021. "Innovation, trade and multi‐product firms," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 311-337, February.
    15. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 283-313, July.
    16. Antoine Dechezlepretre & Elias Einio & Ralf Martin & Kieu-Trang Nguyen & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Do tax incentives for research increase firm innovation? An RD design for R&D," GRI Working Papers 230, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    17. Maican, Florin & Orth, Matilda, 2021. "Determinants of economies of scope in retail," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    18. repec:wsr:wpaper:y:2016:i:165 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Myeongwan Kim, 2019. "Does Import Competition Reduce Domestic Innovation? Evidence from the 'China Stock' and Firm-Level Data on Canadian Manufacturing," CSLS Research Reports 2019-03, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    20. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2022_002 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Fang Wang & Zhaoyuan Xu & Xiaoyong Dai, 2023. "Is learning by exporting technology specific? Evidence from Chinese firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 275-304, February.
    22. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

    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:nbr:nberwo:27986. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.