Fixed Export Costs and Export Behavior

Luis Castro, Ben Li, Keith Maskus and Yiqing Xie
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Luis Castro: Universidad Privada Boliviana, LaPaz, Boliviana
Yiqing Xie: Fudan University, Shanghai, China

No 855, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper provides a direct test of how fixed export costs and productivity jointly determine firm-level export behavior. Using Chilean data, we construct indices of fixed export costs for each industry-region-year triplet and match them to domestic firms. Our empirical results show that firms facing higher fixed export costs are less likely to export, while those with higher productivity export more. These outcomes are the foundation of the widely-used sorting mechanism in trade models with firm heterogeneity. A particularly novel finding is that high-productivity nonexporters face greater fixed export costs than low-productivity exporters. We also find that the substitution between fixed export costs and productivity in determining export decisions is weaker for firms with higher productivity. Finally, both larger fixed export costs and greater within-triplet productivity dispersion raise the export volume of the average exporter.

Keywords: Sorting; firm heterogeneity; fixed export costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 F12 F14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-07-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Fixed Export Costs and Export Behavior (2016)
Working Paper: Fixed Export Costs and Export Behavior (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boc:bocoec:855

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