Irish firms’ productivity and Imported Inputs

In this paper, we investigate the empirical relationship between firms’ productivity, and imports of intermediate inputs at plant level. Using a unique dataset for Ireland, we focus our analysis on manufacturing firms by distinguishing for ownership and relative efficiency. Our findings show that an increase in the intensive margin of imports positively affects the efficiency of domestic firms, in particular through the imports of materials. Most importantly, we find heterogeneous responses to variations in import intensity, depending on the initial level of productivity. The more efficient a domestic firm is, and the larger the benefits from importing are. The results are robust to potential endogeneity of imports’ decisions, and to reverse casualty: past efficiency levels are not correlated with current import intensity.