Exports and Productivity: Comparable Evidence for 14 Countries

We use comparable micro level panel data for 14 countries and a set of identically specified empirical models to investigate the relationship between exports and productivity. Our overall results are in line with the big picture that is by now familiar from the literature: Exporters are more productive than non-exporters when observed and unobserved heterogeneity are controlled for, and these exporter productivity premia tend to increase with the share of exports in total sales; there is strong evidence in favour of self-selection of more productive firms into export markets, but nearly no evidence in favour of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. We document that the exporter premia differ considerably across countries in identically specified empirical models. In a meta-analysis of our results we find that countries that are more open and have more effective government report higher productivity premia. However, the level of development per se does not appear to be an explanation for the observed cross-country differences.exports; productivity; micro data; international comparison

Organizational Innovations and Labor Productivity in a Panel of Italian Manufacturing Firms

We study determinants of the probability of introducing an orga-nizational innovation using three large cross sections of Italian man-ufacturing firms in the period 1995-2003. We analyze the effect and complementarity of other types of investments, like ICT, R&D, human and physical capital and the adoption of product or process innova-tions. Furthermore, we estimate the effect of introducing organiza-tional innovations and indirectly technical innovations on the growth rate of labor productivity for the unbalanced panel of firms. Disem-bodied technological change is well represented by OIs, while product 1 innovations seem to have an effect on the efficiency of capital inputs only (capital stock-embodied technical change). Process innovations do not have a statistical impact as an indirect input-efficiency driving force, in our data.