Firms’ Productivity and Internationalisation Choices: Evidence for a Large Sample of Italian Firms

Luigi Benfratello and Tiziano Razzolini ()

No 236, Development Working Papers from Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano

Abstract: This paper provides evidence on the links between productivity and internationalisation choices for a large sample of both large and small-medium sized Italian firms. By using detailed qualitative and quantitative information we first identify those firms engaged in international activities through exports and/or horizontal FDIs. Following the empirical literature on firm heterogeneity we estimate different measures of Total Factor Productivity and we provide empirical support to the theoretical predictions that there is a productivity ranking among domestic firms, exporters, and FDI performers. By estimating a multinomial logit model, we also control for the effect of variables other than TFP such as size, innovative activity, age, ICT adoption, labour composition, and group membership. As these variables only partially capture the effect of productivity on the probability to engage in foreign markets, we find that the ranking is robust with respect to the inclusion of these additional firm-level characteristics.

Keywords: FDI; Productivity; Export; Firm Heterogeneity; Multinomial Logit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C35 D24 F14 F23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29
Date: 2008-01-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.dagliano.unimi.it/media/WP2008_236.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:csl:devewp:236

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Development Working Papers from Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chiara Elli ().