Learning-by-Exporting? Firm-Level Evidence for UK Manufacturing and Services Sectors

Richard Harris () and Qian Li ()

Working Papers from Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow

Abstract: This study empirically assesses the microeconomic exporting-productivity nexus for both the UK manufacturing and services sectors during 1996-2004, based on a weighted FAME dataset. Our results show that firms that are older, that possess intangible assets or that have higher (labour) productivity in the year prior to exporting, are significantly more likely to sell overseas. In testing the post-entry ‘learning-by-exporting’ effect, we employ three approaches to controlling for endogeneity and sample selection, viz. instrumental variables, control function and matching, and find that this effect is present in many industries but not universal, and also varies amongst different types of exporting firms. Our overall estimate for the UK economy suggests a substantial post-entry productivity effect for firms new to exporting; a negative effect for firms exiting overseas markets; and large productivity gains while exporting for those that both enter and exit.

Keywords: exports; control function; GMM; matching; TFP; sample selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 F14 L25 R38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eff and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Working Paper: Learning-by-Exporting? Firm-Level Evidence for UK Manufacturing and Services Sectors (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gla:glaewp:2007_22

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