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This paper investigates the effect of export entry on productivity, employment and wages of Latvian and Estonian firms in the context of global value chain (GVC). Like in many countries, exporting firms in Latvia and Estonia are more productive, larger, pay higher wages and are more capital intensive than non-exporting firms. While this is partly because firms that are originally more productive and have better performances are more likely to enter export, Latvian and Estonian firms also realise more than 23% and 14% higher labour productivity level as the result of export entry. Export entry also increases employment and average wages. Gains in productivity and employment are particularly large when firms enter exports that are related to participation in knowledge-intensive activities found in the upstream of GVC. For instance, Latvian firms that start exporting intermediate goods or non-transport services (which include knowledge intensive services) enjoy significantly higher productivity gains than those starting to export final goods or transport services. These findings underscore the importance of innovation policies that strengthen firms' capabilities to supply highly differentiated knowledge-intensive goods and services to GVC.

Recently, Foreign Invested Enterprises (FIEs) in China have increased their investment in not only production activity but also R&D activity. This paper examines the impact of spillovers from such activities on two types of innovations by Chinese domestic firms: Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and invention patent application, using comprehensive industry and province-level data. We evaluate such spillovers according to FIEs' ownership structure, the origin of foreign funds, and the type of their activity: R&D, and production. We find an interesting asymmetry between spillovers to TFP and patent application：while we do not find significant intra-industry spillovers from FIEs, which is in line with previous studies, we find robust inter-industries spillover on TFP. On the other hand, we find substantial intra-industry spillovers promoting invention patent application but no evidence of inter-industries spillovers. Furthermore, whereas spillovers from FIEs to Chinese firms' TFP stem from their production activities, the source of spillovers to invention patent application is mostly through their R&D activity. Our findings indicate a need for multi-dimensional evaluation on the role of FDI in developing countries.Keywords: China, FDI spillovers, R&D, Innovation JEL classifications: O12;O3;F23;O53 This paper is one of the products of DRC-RIETI joint research. We are grateful to Masahisa Fujita, Masayuki Morikawa and participants of the DRC-RIETI joint workshop at RIETI and DRC for their valuable comments. Remaining errors are those of the authors. The opinions expressed in this paper do not reflect those of RIETI or DRC of the State Council,

This study empirically examines the role of agglomeration in enabling firms to begin exporting, using a large dataset of Chinese firms. Knowledge spillover caused by the agglomeration of exporters can reduce the initial cost of export, thereby lowering the "productivity cut-off" required to export. A parametric estimation of an export entry model indicates that the agglomeration of incumbent exporters contributes significantly to export participation, although its magnitude is limited. These spillover effects are generated not only by the agglomeration of exporting foreign invested firms (FIFs), but also, more importantly, by that of indigenous Chinese exporters. In fact, the agglomeration of exporting FIFs only contributes to the export entry of FIFs, yet has a negative impact on indigenous Chinese firms' export participation.

Summary This paper investigates the effects of EU regional support on firm productivity, the number of employees and other performance indicators. We use a rich firm-level dataset for Latvia – the country, where investment activities are largely affected by the availability of EU funding. After controlling for the fact that more productive and larger firms are more likely to acquire EU finds, we find that participation in projects co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) increases firms’ employment, turnover and capital stock per employee immediately, while it raises their productivity only two years after the launch of the projects. ERDF beneficiaries that are initially less productive, larger, less capital intensive and more financially leveraged enjoy larger productivity gains.