A new perspective on the firm size-growth relationship: Shape of profits, investment and heterogeneous credit constraints

This paper shows that the diverging results obtained in the literature on the firm size-growth relationship can be reconciled in a very general theoretical framework featuring firm-level heterogeneity and investment decision. Three main elements determine the nature and the intensity of the relationship between firm-level size and investment: the shape of operating profits with respect to size, the shape of marginal returns to investment (in terms of size) with respect to initial size and the shape of marginal cost of investment with respect to size. Any difference across countries, industries or periods in one of these three dimensions can modify the sign and the intensity of the firm size-investment and the firm size-growth relationship at equilibrium. As an example, I show that in France, heterogeneous credit constraints, which affect the shape of the marginal cost of investment, can explain cross-sectoral variations in the firm size-investment and firm size-growth relationship over the 1996-2002 period. As a consequence, from a macroeconomic view point, firm size distribution is, all else equal, more right-skewed in sectors where small firms are disproportionately credit constrained and small firms participate less to sectorial growth in these sectors. The analytical framework proposed in this paper is general enough to apply to the analysis of any heterogeneous response of economic agents.Investment, size, firm size-growth relationship, financial constraints

Entry on Export Markets and Firm-Level Performance Growth: Intra-Industrial Convergence or Divergence?

This paper investigates theoretically and empirically the endogenous investment decision of firms conditioning on export decision. It shows that theoretically, whatever the form of preferences, firms that start exporting invest more and grow more than the others. However, it is shown that when preferences are CES, within each category of firms (domestic and switchers), initial productivity and investment are strategic complements, inducing intra-industrial divergence. On the contrary, when preferences are quadratic, initial productivity and investment are strategic substitutes: less productive firms invest more and grow more than the others, inducing intra-industrial convergence. Empirical results on French data support the predictions of the quadratic preferences model.Export Decision, Investment, Firm Heterogeneity

French firms at the conquest of Asian markets: The role of export spillovers

In this study, we explore the role of export spillovers on the capacity of French firms to conquer Asian markets. We confirm, in the context of France, previous results emphasizing the positive impact of surrounding exporters on the probability that a firm starts exporting a given product to a given country. We find that export spillovers are more important for export starts to Asia than for export starts to other countries. Moreover, for the specific Asian destinations, we find evidence of a heterogeneous effect of export spillovers. The presence of surrounding exporting firms appears especially beneficial to small and less productive firms, ad more intense for export starts to Asian countries characterized by low GDP per capita and tough administrative procedures on imports. Hence, export spillovers may help small firms to enter on the most difficult Asian markets.

Trade in quality and income distribution: an analysis of the enlarged EU market.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the determinants of country-level comparative advantages in terms of quality. More precisely, while the literature has mainly focused so far on supply-side determinants of such comparative advantages, we investigate both theoretically and empirically the role played by income distribution (average income and level of inequalities) of a country on the quality of its exports. Doing so, we provide new insights on the existence of demand-based determinants of the quality content of a country’s exports, in line with the Linder (1961) hypothesis, claiming that firms produce and export goods suited to the specific tastes of their local consumers. We build a model with economies of scale where non-homothetic preferences and within-country income differences determine the quality composition of production and exports. Having neutralized any supply-side comparative advantage, we show that richer countries produce and export higher quality goods, while the level of inequalities has an heterogenous impact, positively affecting the quality content of exports for rich enough countries only. We then corroborate our theoretical predictions on bilateral trade data for the enlarged European Union (EU), an integrated market displaying significant heterogeneity in terms of both average income and within-country inequalities of its members. Furthermore, we are able to show that in terms of magnitude of the effects, inequalities are a second-order demand-based determinant of the quality of exports as compared to average income.Product quality, Income distribution, Trade, Economies of scale, European Union.

Export performance of Chinese domestic firms: the role of foreign export spillovers

We investigate how the proximity to multinational exporters influences the creation of new export linkages (extensive margin of trade) by domestic firms in China. Using panel data from Chinese customs for 1997-2007, we show that domestic firms’ capacity to start exporting new varieties to new markets positively responds to the export activity of neighboring foreign firms for that same product-country pair. We find that foreign export spillovers are limited to ordinary trade activities. No foreign export spillovers are found for processing trade. More, export spillovers are stronger for sophisticated products indicating that proximity to foreign exporters may help domestic exporters to upgrade their exports. However we observe that foreign export spillovers are weaker when the technology gap between foreign and domestic firms is large, suggesting that upgrading may not occur when foreign firms have already a strong edge.export performance, spillovers, FDI, sophistication

Export performance of Chinese domestic firms: the role of foreign export spillovers

We investigate how the proximity to multinational exporters influences the creation of new export linkages (extensive margin of trade) by domestic firms in China. Using panel data from Chinese customs for 1997-2007, we show that domestic firms’ capacity to start exporting new varieties to new markets positively responds to the export activity of neighboring foreign firms for that same product-country pair. We find that foreign export spillovers are limited to ordinary trade activities. No foreign export spillovers are found for processing trade. More, export spillovers are stronger for sophisticated products indicating that proximity to foreign exporters may help domestic exporters to upgrade their exports. However we observe that foreign export spillovers are weaker when the technology gap between foreign and domestic firms is large, suggesting that upgrading may not occur when foreign firms have already a strong edge.Export performance; spillovers; FDI; Sophistication

Entry on difficult export markets by Chinese domestic firms: the role of foreign export spillovers

In this study, we explore how the intensity of foreign export spillovers in China varies depending on the difficulty of entry on export markets. We rely on different proxies to define what a "difficult" country is and we find that the presence of surrounding foreign exporting firms helps domestic ones to start exporting, especially when destination countries are difficult. While on average exposure to foreign exporters is associated with a 10% increase of the probability that domestic firms from the same province start exporting the year after, the figure is around 50% higher when the targeted destination country is identified as difficult. Our results are consistent with the idea that exposure to foreign exporters helps to reduce the fixed cost of creating new trade linkages. Our finding hence suggests that the increasing presence of foreign exporting firms in China might contribute to the diversification of Chinese domestic firms' exports towards more difficult and previously inaccessible destinations.

Impact des politiques de clusters sur les performances des entreprises. Enseignements de l’expérience française

Les politiques de clusters sont aujourd’hui présentées comme l’instrument incontournable du développement local et de la compétitivité des Etats. Pourtant, leur analyse révèle une très grande diversité qui laisse parfois douter de leur cohérence. L’évaluation des Systèmes Productifs Locaux et des Pôles de compétitivité français illustre bien cette hétérogénéité. Le corollaire de ceci est qu’il est difficile d’avoir un discours normatif sur les politiques de clusters. Les politiques de clusters ne sont pas bonnes ou mauvaises en soi. Il y a en revanche des initiatives qui marchent et d’autres pas. L’évaluation permet d’identifier les succès et les échecs, mais fournit aussi un éclairage sur le dispositif lui-même de la politique, utile à son évolution et à son amélioration.

Local Export spillovers in France

This paper investigates the presence of local export spillovers on both the extensive (the decision to start exporting) and the intensive (the export volume) margins of trade, using data on French individual export flows, at the product-level and by destination country, between 1998 and 2003. We investigate whether the individual decision to start exporting and exported volume are influenced by the presence of nearby product and/or destination specific exporters, using a gravity-type equation estimated at the firm-level. Spillovers are considered at a fine geographical level corresponding to employment areas (348 in France). We control for the new economic geography-type selection of firms into agglomerated areas, and for the local price effects of firms agglomeration.Firm-level export data; Destination specific spillovers; Agglomeration

Local export spillovers in France

This paper investigates the presence of local export spillovers on both the extensive (the decision to start exporting) and the intensive (the export volume) margins of trade, using data on French individual export flows, at the product-level and by destination country, between 1998 and 2003. We investigate whether the individual decision to start exporting and exported volume are influenced by the presence of nearby product and/or destination specific exporters, using a gravity-type equation estimated at the firm-level. Spillovers are considered at a fine geographical level corresponding to employment areas (348 in France). We control for the new economic geography-type selection of firms into agglomerated areas, and for the local price effects of firms agglomeration. Results show evidence of the presence of export spillovers on the export decision but not on the exported volume. We interpret this as a first evidence of export spillovers acting through the fixed rather than the variable cost. Spillovers on the decision to start exporting are stronger when specific, by product and destination, and are not significant when considered on all products or on all products-all destinations. Moreover, export spillovers exhibit a spatial decay within France: the effect of other exporting firms on the export decision is stronger within employment areas and declines with distance.firm-level export data ; destination specific spillovers ; agglomeration