Imports and productivity: the impact of geography and factor intensity

Marcel van den Berg and Charles Marrewijk

No 13-12, Working Papers from Utrecht School of Economics

Abstract: Using micro-data for Dutch firms, we argue that the productivity spillovers from importing technology intensive products from Taiwan differ from importing unskilled-labor intensive products from Switzerland. We show that both the geographic component (what country is the import from) and the intensity component (what type of good is imported) is crucial for measuring and understanding these spillovers. We show that increasing distance and decreasing levels of development of the origin economy negatively affect the diffusion of efficiency gains embodied in imported goods. Similarly, these gains are larger for technology intensive goods and smaller for unskilled-labor intensive goods. This implies that the geographic-intensity markets are unique and cannot be lumped together. In addition, a diversified import portfolio (the extensive dimension) is always positively associated with firm-level productivity.

Keywords: Firm heterogeneity; imports; productivity; geography; factor intensity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eff, nep-geo, nep-int and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Journal Article: Imports and productivity: the impact of geography and factor intensity (2017)
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