Exports, Export Destinations, and Skills

Abstract

This paper explores the links between exports, export destinations, and skill utilization. We identify two mechanisms behind these links: differences across destinations in quality valuation and in exporting required services, activities that are intensive in skilled labor. Depending on the characteristics of the source country (income, language), the theories suggest a skill-bias in export destinations. We test the theory using a panel of Argentine manufacturing firms. We find that Argentine firms exporting to high-income countries hired more skilled workers than other exporters and domestic firms. Instead, we cannot identify any causal effect of exporting per se on skill utilization. (JEL F14, F16, J24, L60, O14, O19)

SME innovation, exporting and growth: A review of existing evidence

“…The research literature provides considerable evidence of the direct contribution of workforce, managerial and marketing skills to innovation and exporting, although the literature on SMEs specifically is relatively limited (Leiponen 2005;Freel 2005;Knight and Kim 2009;Brambilla, Lederman, and Porto 2012). In the research literatures on national competitiveness there is also broad agreement that firms require distinctly different skill sets to pursue different market strategies.…”

The Exporter Wage Premium Reconsidered: Destinations, Distances and Linked Employer-Employee Data

“…However, these results are in line with richer models that combine heterogenous firms and endogenous exporting activity with asymmetric countries, quality differentiation or sunk costs associated with distance [cf. Verhoogen (2008), Brambilla, Lederman and Porto (2010) and Holmes and Stevens (2010)]. More research -and preferably even better data than those used here -is needed to further disentangle the interdependence between these factors.…”

“…However, extensions of the Melitz model that incorporate quality differentiation -e.g. Verhoogen (2008) or Brambilla, Lederman and Porto (2010) -are able to explain how quality downgrading might attenuate, eliminate or possibly even reverse the wage premium of exporters from high-income Germany to the poorer New EU Member States. 9 …”

“…Alcalá and Hernández (2010) -to the author's best knowledge the only existing study that employs linkedemployer-employee data to distinguish between exporter wage premia for different export destinations -use Spanish data to confirm that different destinations are associated with distinctive wage premia. Additionally, Brambilla, Lederman and Porto (2010) document that only those Argentine exporters that export to high-income countries pay higher average wages than domestic firms while Wagner (2007b) and Verardi and Wagner (2010) find that German firms that export beyond the eurozone are (slightly) more productive than those that sell their goods only within the euro area.…”

Going Global: Markups and Product Quality in the Chinese Art Market

“…6 By way of comparison, at the top two Chinese auction houses, Poly and Guardian, the buyer's premium ranges between 10-25%. 7 …”