Export, Productivity and Product Switching: The Case of Italian Manufacturing Firms

Sergio de Nardis and Carmine Pappalardo
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Carmine Pappalardo: ISAE-Institute for Studies and Economic Analyses

No 110, ISAE Working Papers from ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY)

Abstract: During the first half of the current decade, with rising competitive pressures, Italian manufacturing firms were forced to undertake a process of restructuring which had positive repercussions on export performance. This paper carries out empirical analysis using a panel of exporting firms obtained by matching firm-level information gathered by ISTAT and ISAE surveys. Two main channels of adjustment are investigated: inter and intra-firm. On the inter-firm side, we find that exporters were actually more productive: exporting was an essential outcome of pre-existing productivity advantages that led to self-selection of more productive businesses in international markets. As for the intra-firm adjustment, we show that the high frequency of product switching behaviour within exporting firms was significantly correlated with firm-level productivity growth, and that it contributed to a reallocation of economic activity within firms to more productive uses.

Keywords: heterogeneity; exporting; productivity; product switching. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 J24 L11 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2009-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-eff and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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