Risk Sharing Networks in Rural Philippines

2002

This study asks if firms acquire technology through exporting by estimating productivity changes on a panel of Indonesian manufacturing establishments from 1990-1996. We adopt two strategies to control for the endogeneity of a firm's decision to export. First, we exploit the liberalization of Indonesia's trade regime in the early 1990's as an exogenous source of variation in exporting behavior. Second, we remove the effect of unobserved productivity shocks which may simultaneously influence both exporting behavior and performance.

Journal of Development Economics, 2004

This study asks if firms become more productive by learning through exporting. We do so by estimating production functions using a panel dataset of Indonesian manufacturing establishments from 1990 to 1996. In contrast to previous studies of more developed countries, we find strong evidence that firms experience a jump in productivity of about three to five percent following the initiation of exporting. The timing of the performance improvement suggests learning from exporting rather than just self-selection of better firms into export markets.

2002

Fafchamps, Hamine, and Zeufack test two alternative firms that export. Most do so immediately after creation. models of learning to export: productivity learning, The authors also find that, among exporters, new whereby firms learn to reduce production costs, and products are exported very rapidly after production has market learning, whereby firms learn to design products begun. The share of exported output nevertheless that appeal to foreign consumers. increases for 2-3 years after a new product is introduced. Using panel and cross-section data on Moroccan Old firms are unlikely to switch to exports, even in manufacturers, the authors uncover evidence of market response to changes in macroeconomic incentives. The learning but little evidence of productivity learning. authors find a positive relationship between exports and These findings are consistent with the concentration of productivity and conclude that it is the resuilt of selfMloroccan manufacturing exports in consumer item...

Journal of African Economies, 2007

Fafchamps, Hamine, and Zeufack test two alternative firms that export. Most do so immediately after creation. models of learning to export: productivity learning,

2012

This study examines whether high productivity is either the cause or a consequence of a business's decision to export. Using a balanced panel dataset from 2005-2009 for Vietnamese manufacturing private SMEs, our empirical results find strongly statistical evidence for the self-selection of more productive firms into the export market. The alternative hypothesis, learning by exporting, was shown to be invalid through employing fixed effect panel data estimation, and fixed effect Instrumental Variable regression. By going beyond the previous literature, this study also reveals that export participation has a statistically insignificant impact on technical efficiency, technical progress, and scale change. Last but not least, improvement in innovative capacity and network with foreign customers is also important determinants in boosting the export participation of private enterprises.

2013

The increasing number of literatures investigating on the impact of trade openness on firm efficiency has not yet provided a definite prediction on the direction of causality (Rodrik, 1988, 1992, and Tybout 1992). We investigate the relation between exporting and productivity on the Senegalese manufacturing sectors. Using a unique firm-level panel data for the period 1998-2011, we estimate productivity and exporting dynamics, controlling for other unobserved effects, using simultaneous functions based on Bigsten and al. (2002). Our results indicate the evidences of both selfselection of the most efficient firms enter into the export market and effect of Learning in the export market. Our findings suggest that workers' qualification and access to Patents and Licences have a positive effect on the process of learning. Also, small firms particularly learn more from exporting. From a policy perspective, this evidence of learning-by-exporting suggests that Senegal has much to gain from promoting its manufacturing sector towards exporting by supporting domestic firms to overcome the barriers to enter into foreign market, particularly by investing on skilled workers and promote access to Patents and Licences as well as disseminating benefits arising from exporting to non-exporters.

2005

The poor performance of many African economies has been associated with low growth of exports in general and of manufacturing exports in particular. In this paper we draw on micro evidence of manufacturing firms in five African countries -Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria -to investigate the causes of poor exporting performance. We exploit a data set which has a much longer panel dimension than has been used before to assess the relative importance of self-selection based on efficiency and firm size as determinants of export participation. We show that firm size is a robust determinant of the decision to export. It is not a proxy for efficiency, for capital intensity, for sector or for time-invariant unobservables. In contrast the evidence for self-selection into exporting is very weak. Finally our use of a longer run panel than has been available before has allowed us to separate out the roles of ownership and skills as possible determinants of participation in exporting. We find that both foreign ownership and skills are significant determinants of exporting.

Small Business Economics, 2012

Using a matching approach, we compare the productivity trajectories of future exportentrants and matched non-entrants. Future exporters have higher productivity than do non-entrants before entry into international markets, which indicates self-selection into exports. More interestingly, we also observe a productivity increase among exportentrants relative to non-entrants before export entry. This might be explained by higher investments in physical capital prior to export entry. We find no evidence that the productivity gap between export-entrants and non-entrants continues to grow after export entry. Our results suggest that learning-to-export occurs but that learning-byexporting does not. In contrast to previous studies on Swedish manufacturing, we focus particularly on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

2010

2011

Since Arrow (1962), spillovers from pioneer to follower in non-excludable innovations are central to our understanding of endogenous economic growth. Nonetheless, evidence of these spillovers in less-developed economies has been elusive. Our paper contributes by showing novel facts consistent with externalities in new export products. To avoid biases towards ex-post successes, we use data on the universe of customs transactions from Chile (1990Chile ( -2006. We nd that, rst, follower rms are more likely to enter a product if the pioneer rm survives exporting. More importantly, we also nd that pioneers enter and remain smaller than followers, which is indicative that the rst exporter may not be the rm that benets the most from the discovery. This fact is inconsistent with the currently standard view in international trade, in which the largest rm would be the rst willing to pay a homogeneous sunk cost of exporting. In contrast, our facts are consistent with the view that smaller pioneer exporters are data producers, whose spillovers benet larger followers. We oer a simple model to formalize this intuition, based on the idea that large exporters have more choices on how to allocate their managerial capacity. This real option makes large exporters wait, as to assign their marginal manager on the best possible project. In contrast, smaller and more focused rms prefer to be pioneers. JEL classication: L26 ; F14; O4.