Firm heterogeneity and exports in the Netherlands: Identifying export potential

Peter Zwaneveld (), Raoul van Maarseveen, Steven Brakman and Harry Garretsen
Additional contact information
Peter Zwaneveld: CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis
Steven Brakman: RUG
Harry Garretsen: RUG

No 369, CPB Discussion Paper from CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis

Abstract: According to the Melitz (2003) model, potential exporters have to be sufficiently productive to overcome the entry costs of foreign markets. Once firms pass this productivity threshold, they all export. However, empirical evidence indicates that a substantial share of high-productive firms do not export. Stimulating these highly productive firms to export is of interest to policy makers, as this provides these firms with new growth opportunities. In this paper, we focus specifically on this group of high-productive non-exporters and identify the factors that might prevent them from successfully exporting. We employ a large micro-dataset for Dutch firms both in services and manufacturing for the period 2010-2014. Our findings are threefold. First, high productivity is an important, but not a sufficient condition for exporting. Firm size (substitute for productivity), import status, and foreign ownership are also important. Second, firm location is crucial. A location in peripheral areas prevents high productive firms from exporting; especially a location in the Northern part of the Netherlands reduces the probability to export. Third, our set-up identifies individual firms that are potential exporters.

JEL-codes: F12 F14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eur, nep-int and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/files/omnidownloa ... -the-netherlands.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpb:discus:369

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CPB Discussion Paper from CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().