PubData Leuphana Repository: Exports and productivity in Germany

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://doi.org/10.48548/pubdata-1234

Resource type	Working Paper
Title(s)	Exports and productivity in Germany
DOI	10.48548/pubdata-1234
Handle	20.500.14123/1297
Creator	Wagner, Joachim 0000-0001-6058-4536 129798215
Abstract	Using unique recently released nationally representative high-quality longitudinal data at the plant level, this paper presents the first comprehensive evidence on the relationship between exports and productivity for Germany, a leading actor on the world market for manufactured goods. It applies and extends the now standard approach from the international literature to document that the positive productivity differential of exporters compared to non-exporters is statistically significant, and substantial, even when observed firm characteristics and unobserved firm specific effects are controlled for. For West German plants (but not for East German plants) some empirical evidence for self-selection of more productive firms into export markets is found. There is no evidence for the hypothesis that plants which start to export perform better in the three years after the start than their counterparts which do not start to sell their products on the world market. Results for West Germany support the hypothesis that the productivity differential between exporters and nonexporters is at least in part the result of a market driven selection process in which those export starters that have low productivity at starting time fail as a successful exporter in the years after the start, and only those that were more productive at starting time continue to export.
Language	English
Keywords	Export; Productivity; Micro Data; Germany; Export; Produktivität; Personenbezogene Daten; Deutschland
Year of publication in PubData	2007
Publishing type	First publication
Publication version	Published version
Date issued	2007-04-02
Creation context	Research
Published by	Medien- und Informationszentrum, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Related resources	Relations of this publication Relations of this publication