Nottingham Centre for Research on
Globalisation and Economic Policy (GEP)

GEP Research Paper 04/01

Firm Level Interactions Between Exporting and Productivity: Industry Specific Evidence

David Greenaway and Zhihong Yu

This paper is forthcoming in the Review of World Economics, 2004.

Abstract

This paper investigates interactions between exporting and productivity at the firm level, using a panel of firms in the UK chemical industry. This is both highly technology intensive and the UK's largest exporting sector. We find exporters are more productive than non-exporters, but are also on average smaller. This superior productivity performance among exporters appears to be caused by both self-selection and learning-by-exporting effects. In contrast to other studies, we find learning effects are significantly positive among new entrants, weaker for more experienced exporters and negative for established exporters.

Issued in February 2004.

This paper is available in PDF format .

Nottingham Centre for Research on Globalisation and Economic Policy

Sir Clive Granger Building
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

Enquiries: hilary.hughes@nottingham.ac.uk