IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwedp/201958.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firms' export decisions: Selection versus trial-and-error

Author

Listed:
  • Movahedi, Mohammad
  • Shahbazi, Kiumars
  • Abdessalam, Ahmed Haidara Ould

Abstract

In this paper, an original and simple theoretical model is developed to better integrate various dimensions of the firms' decision to export. The model sheds light on the affirmations of the founding models of the "new theory of international trade", in particular the role of productivity and sunk costs of exporting in the firms' export decisions. It can also explain stylized facts that seem difficult to reconcile with the implications of the founding models: 1) flows of export market entry and exit are substantial; 2) entry into export markets would be rather gradual in the sense that firms start exporting small quantities and, if they survive, quickly expand their exports.

Suggested Citation

  • Movahedi, Mohammad & Shahbazi, Kiumars & Abdessalam, Ahmed Haidara Ould, 2019. "Firms' export decisions: Selection versus trial-and-error," Economics Discussion Papers 2019-58, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201958
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2019-58
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/206615/1/1681750783.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawless, Martina, 2009. "Firm export dynamics and the geography of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 245-254, April.
    2. Andrew B. Bernard & Jonathan Eaton & J. Bradford Jensen & Samuel Kortum, 2003. "Plants and Productivity in International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1268-1290, September.
    3. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2007. "Firms in International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 105-130, Summer.
    4. Joachim Wagner, 2016. "Exports and Productivity: A Survey of the Evidence from Firm Level Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Microeconometrics of International Trade, chapter 1, pages 3-41, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Hallak, Juan Carlos & Sivadasan, Jagadeesh, 2013. "Product and process productivity: Implications for quality choice and conditional exporter premia," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 53-67.
    6. 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.
    7. Schmeiser, Katherine N., 2012. "Learning to export: Export growth and the destination decision of firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 89-97.
    8. Cassiman, Bruno & Golovko, Elena & Martínez-Ros, Ester, 2010. "Innovation, exports and productivity," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 372-376, July.
    9. Albornoz, Facundo & Calvo Pardo, Héctor F. & Corcos, Gregory & Ornelas, Emanuel, 2012. "Sequential exporting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 17-31.
    10. Movahedi, Mohammad & Shahbazi, Kiumars & Gaussens, Olivier, 2017. "Innovation and willingness to export: Is there an effect of conscious self-selection?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-22.
    11. João Amador & Luca Opromolla, 2013. "Product and destination mix in export markets," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(1), pages 23-53, March.
    12. Joachim Wagner, 2016. "International Trade and Firm Performance: A Survey of Empirical Studies since 2006," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Microeconometrics of International Trade, chapter 2, pages 43-87, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Sarah Guillou & Flora Bellone, 2011. "Innovation et primes à l’exportation : une analyse empirique sur données d’entreprises françaises," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 197(1), pages 45-61.
    14. Nicholas Sheard, 2014. "Learning to Export and the Timing of Entry to Export Markets," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 536-560, August.
    15. Ines Buono & Harald Fadinger & Stefan Berger, 2008. "The Micro Dynamic of Exporting-Evidence from French Firms," Vienna Economics Papers vie0901, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    16. 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.
    17. David Greenaway & Richard Kneller, 2007. "Firm heterogeneity, exporting and foreign direct investment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 134-161, February.
    18. Facundo Albornoz & Hector Calvo-Pardo & Gregory Corcos & Emanuel Ornelas, 2012. "Sequential exporting: how firms break into foreign markets," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 364, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    19. Nguyen, Daniel X., 2012. "Demand uncertainty: Exporting delays and exporting failures," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 336-344.
    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. Movahedi, Mohammad, 2013. "Le commerce international, l’adoption de l’innovation et le choix de l’entrée-sortie à l’exportation des firmes [International trade, innovation adoption and export entry-exit choice of the firms]," MPRA Paper 44268, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jan 2014.
    2. Movahedi, Mohammad & Shahbazi, Kiumars, 2020. "Firms' export decisions: Self-selection versus trial-and-error," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 14, pages 1-15.
    3. Nicholas Sheard, 2014. "Learning to Export and the Timing of Entry to Export Markets," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 536-560, August.
    4. Joachim Wagner, 2016. "A survey of empirical studies using transaction level data on exports and imports," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 152(1), pages 215-225, February.
    5. Harold Creusen & Henk Kox & Arjan Lejour & Roger Smeets, 2011. "Exploring the Margins of Dutch Exports: A Firm-Level Analysis," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(4), pages 413-434, December.
    6. SHIMAMOTO Daichi & Yu Ri KIM & TODO Yasuyuki, 2019. "The Effect of Social Interactions on Exporting Activities: Evidence from Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises in rural Vietnam," Discussion papers 19020, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    7. Albornoz, Facundo & Calvo Pardo, Héctor F. & Corcos, Gregory & Ornelas, Emanuel, 2012. "Sequential exporting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 17-31.
    8. Lili Wang & Yong Zhao, 2013. "Does Experience Facilitate Entry into New Export Destinations?," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 21(5), pages 36-59, September.
    9. Fernandes, Ana P. & Tang, Heiwai, 2014. "Learning to export from neighbors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 67-84.
    10. Ingo Geishecker & Philipp J. H. Schröder & Allan Sørensen, 2017. "Explaining the size differences of exporter premia: theory and evidence," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 153(2), pages 327-351, May.
    11. Eleonora Fichera & Yevgeniya Shevtsova, 2020. "Sunk exporting costs and export market coverage," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(4), pages 599-616, July.
    12. Ariu, Andrea, 2012. "Services Versus Goods Trade: Are They The Same?," CEPR Discussion Papers 9036, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Qi, Jianhong & Zhang, Zhaoyong & Liu, Hui, 2018. "Credit constraints and firm market entry decision: Firm-level evidence from internationalizing Chinese multinationals," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 272-285.
    14. Enrique López-Bazo & Elisabet Motellón, 2013. "“Firm exports, innovation, … and regions”," AQR Working Papers 201305, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised May 2013.
    15. Shevtsova, Yevgeniya, 2015. "International Trade and Productivity: The Role of Industry and Export Destination," MPRA Paper 69793, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Lo Turco, Alessia & Maggioni, Daniela, 2018. "Effects of Islamic religiosity on bilateral trust in trade: The case of Turkish exports," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 947-965.
    17. Vincenzo Verardi & Joachim Wagner, 2021. "Productivity Premia for German Manufacturing Firms Exporting to the Euro-area and Beyond: First Evidence from Robust Fixed Effects Estimations," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Joachim Wagner (ed.), MICROECONOMETRIC STUDIES OF FIRMS’ IMPORTS AND EXPORTS Advanced Methods of Analysis and Evidence from German Enterprises, chapter 7, pages 87-109, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Pierluigi Montalbano & Silvia Nenci & Carlo Pietrobelli, 2018. "Opening and linking up: firms, GVCs, and productivity in Latin America," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 917-935, April.
    19. 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.
    20. Ulf Lewrick & Lukas Mohler & Rolf Weder, 2014. "When firms and industries matter: understanding the sources of productivity growth," BIS Working Papers 469, Bank for International Settlements.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    firm heterogeneity; self-selection; sequential exporting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General

    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:zbw:ifwedp:201958. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.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.