IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6272.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Exceptional Exporter Performance: Cause, Effect, or Both?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew B. Bernard
  • J. Bradford Jensen

Abstract

A growing body of empirical work has documented the superior performance characteristics" of exporting plants and firms relative to non-exporters. Employment, shipments and capital intensity are all higher at exporters at any given moment. This paper asks whether good" firms become exporters or whether exporting improves firm performance. The evidence is quite" clear on one point: good firms become exporters, both growth rates and levels of success measures" are higher ex-ante for exporters. The benefits of exporting for the firm are less clear. Employment" growth and the probability of survival are both higher for exporters; however growth is not superior, particularly over longer horizons.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen, 1997. "Exceptional Exporter Performance: Cause, Effect, or Both?," NBER Working Papers 6272, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6272
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6272.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Bernard & Joachim Wagner, 1997. "Exports and success in German manufacturing," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 133(1), pages 134-157, March.
    2. 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.
    3. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen, 2004. "Why Some Firms Export," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 561-569, May.
    4. Aw, B. -Y. & Hwang, A. R., 1995. "Productivity and the export market: A firm-level analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 313-332, August.
    5. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    6. Roberts, Mark J & Tybout, James R, 1997. "The Decision to Export in Colombia: An Empirical Model of Entry with Sunk Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 545-564, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Richard Harris & John Moffat, 2011. "R&D, Innovation and Exporting," SERC Discussion Papers 0073, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Sébastien Jean, 2002. "International Trade and Firms' Heterogeneity under Monopolistic Competition," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 291-311, July.
    3. Dalgic, Basak & Fazlioglu, Burcu & Gasiorek, Michael, 2015. "Costs of trade and self-selection into exporting and importing: The case of Turkish manufacturing firms," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-28.
    4. Marian Rizov & Patrick Paul Walsh, 2009. "Productivity and Trade Orientation in UK Manufacturing," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(6), pages 821-849, December.
    5. Andrew B Bernard & J Bradford Jensen, 2001. "Exporting and Productivity: The Importance of Reallocation," Working Papers 01-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    6. 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.
    7. Irene Brambilla & Nicolas Depetris Chauvin & Guido Porto, 2017. "Examining the Export Wage Premium in Developing Countries," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 447-475, August.
    8. R Harris & Q Li, "undated". "Exporting, R&D and Absorptive Capacity in UK Establishments: Evidence from the 2001 Community Innovation Survey," Working Papers 2006_19, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    9. David Greenaway & Zhihong Yu, 2004. "Firm-level interactions between exporting and productivity: Industry-specific evidence," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 140(3), pages 376-392, September.
    10. Gopinath, Munisamy & Kim, Hanho & Kim, Sooil, 2006. "Productivity Before and After Exports: The Case of Korean Food Processing Firms," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21271, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Toraganlı, Nazlı & Yazgan, M. Ege, 2016. "Exchange rates and firm survival: An examination with Turkish firm-level data," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 433-443.
    12. Gopinath, Munisamy & Sheldon, Ian M. & Echeverria, Rodrigo, 2007. "Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade: Implications for Agricultural and Food Industries," Trade Issues Papers 9349, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    13. Marco Grazzi & Nanditha Mathew & Daniele Moschella, 2021. "Making one’s own way: jumping ahead in the capability space and exporting among Indian firms," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 931-957, July.
    14. Marian Rizov & Patrick Paul Walsh, 2005. "Linking Productivity to Trade in the Structural Estimation of Production within UK Manufacturing Industries," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp98, IIIS.
    15. Schuster, Monica & Maertens, Miet, 2013. "Food Standards, Heterogeneous Firms and Developing Countries’ Export Performance," Working Papers 152084, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    16. Črt Kostevc & Katja Zajc Kejžar, 2020. "Firm‐level export duration: The importance of market‐specific ownership linkages," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 1277-1308, May.
    17. Echeverria, Rodrigo & Gopinath, Munisamy, 2006. "Productivity, Geography, and the Export Decision of Chilean Farms," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25687, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen, 1999. "Exporting and Productivity," NBER Working Papers 7135, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Tarlok Singh, 2010. "Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1517-1564, November.
    20. Schuster, Monica & Maertens, Miet, 2015. "The Impact of Private Food Standards on Developing Countries’ Export Performance: An Analysis of Asparagus Firms in Peru," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 208-221.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory

    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:6272. 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.