Barriers to exporting: Firm-Level Evidence from Germany

Christian Arndt, Claudia Buch and Anselm Mattes
Additional contact information
Christian Arndt: Institute for Applied Economic Research, IAW

No 268, Development Working Papers from Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano

Abstract: Recent literature stresses the importance of low productivity as a barrier to the international expansion of firms. But financial frictions or adverse employment conditions at home could matter as well. In this paper, we present new empirical evidence on the importance of these factors. We use a detailed micro-level dataset of German firms which simultaneously provides information on exports, financial frictions, and labor market conditions. Our paper has three main findings. First, in line with earlier literature, we find a positive impact of size and productivity on firms’ export activities. Second, financial constraints affect the entry into foreign market (extensive margin) more than the volume of exports (intensive margin). Third, labor market conditions have a mixed impact on export activities. The most consistent finding is that firms covered by collective bargaining agreements are less likely to be exporters and export less.

Keywords: multinational firms; exports; firm heterogeneity; productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F2 G2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2008-11-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-int
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.dagliano.unimi.it/media/wp2008_268.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:268

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 ().