Export destinations and learning-by-exporting: Evidence from Belgium

Mauro Pisu

No 140, Working Paper Research from National Bank of Belgium

Abstract: This paper evaluates the causal effects of exports to different destination countries using a comprehensive dataset on Belgian manufacturing firms from 1998 to 2005. Initial evidence suggests that, before export market entry, exporters to more developed economies have superior productivity levels than non-exporters and firms exporting to less developed countries. Moreover, they seem to experience higher productivity growth rates in the post-entry period, suggesting learning-by-exporting effects. However, applying matching methodology to formally evaluate the causal effects of export market entry on productivity reveals no such impact. Thus, the productivity advantage of firms exporting to developed countries appears to be driven solely by self-selection.

Keywords: Learning-by-exporting; export destinations; productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 L1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2008-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nbb.be/doc/ts/publications/wp/wp140en.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:nbb:reswpp:200809-23

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Research from National Bank of Belgium Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().