Exports and Productivity: An Empirical Analysis of German and Austrian Firm-Level Performance

Thorsten Hansen

Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between export activities and firm-level productivity. Unique matching of German and Austrian micro data from 1994 to 2003 suggests that exporters are more productive by around 40 percent compared with non-exporters. Moreover, beside other analysis techniques, instrumental variable estimations suggest that exporting causes a rise in firm-level productivity. That is, the annual average growth rate of an exporting firm's productivity is between about 1 and 1.5 percent higher than that of non-exporters. It allows the conclusion that, against other findings of existing studies, both directions hold: more productive firms self-select themselves into export markets and being active in foreign markets boosts firm-level productivity.

Keywords: exports; firm-level productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 F13 F23 L22 L23 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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