Is "Learning-by-Exporting" Important? Micro-Dynamic Evidence from Colombia, Mexico and Morocco

Abstract

Is there any empirical evidence that firms become more efficient after becoming exporters? Do firms that become exporters generate positive spillovers for domestically-oriented producers? In this paper we analyze the causal links between exporting and productivity using firm-level panel data from three semi-industrialized countries. Representing export market participation and production costs as jointly dependent autoregressive processes, we look for evidence that firms' stochastic cost processes shift when they break into foreign markets. We find that relatively efficient firms become exporters, but firms' unit costs are not affected by previous export market participation. So the well-known efficiency gap between exporters and non-exporters is due to selfselection of the more efficient firms into the export market, rather than learning by exporting, Further, we find some evidence that exporters reduce the costs of breaking into foreign markets for domestically oriented producers, but they do not appear to help these producers become more efficient.

Outsourcing, Foreign Ownership, Exporting and Productivity: An Empirical Investigation with Plant Level Data

“…10 We can therefore calculate two disaggregated measures of international outsourcing, namely, the ratio of imported materials over total wages, and the 7 See, for example, Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2004), Bernard, Eaton, Jensen and Kortum (2003), Clerides, Lach and Tybout (1998). 8 All nominal values are deflated using a standard consumer price index as there are no official sector level price deflators available for Ireland.…”

Learning by Exporting: Do Firm Characteristics Matter? Evidence from Argentinian Panel Data

“…On the one hand, relatively more productive firms may self-select into international markets. Highly productive firms receive a relatively high return from exports because of either the existence of sunk export costs (Clerides et al, 1998;Melitz, 2003) or the combination of Ricardian technological differences and transport costs (Eaton et al, 2004;Bernard et al, 2005). On the other hand, firms may learn from their experience in international markets and the causality traverses from exporting to efficiency gains.…”

“…In a seminal paper, Clerides et al (1998) find strong evidence of self-selection by Colombian, Mexican and Moroccan manufacturing establishments. Bernard and Jensen (1999) and Arnold and Hussinger (2005) find a similar result for US and German firms respectively.…”

A Proportional Theory with Heterogeneous Firms and Endogenous Elasticity

“…buttressed by ample empirical evidences Jensen, 1995, 1999;Clerides, Lach, and Tybout, 1998;Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan, 2001;Roberts and Tybout, 1997a,b;Bernard and Jensen, 1999). Specifically, empirical evidences reflect past empirical findings that firms or plants are heterogeneous in productivity and size even within a narrowly defined industry (Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan, 2001), that some firms do not export because of significant fixed costs involved in trade (Roberts and Tybout, 1997a,b), and that most productive firms self-select as exporters (Bernard and Jensen, 1999).…”