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

Are firms exporting to China and India different from other exporters?

This chapter asks if and why advanced countries differ in their ability to export to China and India. To this end we exploit a newly collected, comparable cross-country dataset (EFIGE) obtained from a survey of 15,000 manufacturing firms in Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. The EFIGE dataset contains detailed information on firms’ international activities as well as firm characteristics such as size and productivity, governance and management structure, workforce, innovation and research activity. We study both the extensive and intensive margins of exports and identify firm characteristics that are positively or negatively correlated wiThexporting activity tout court and wiThexporting to China and India conditional on being an exporter. We confirm previous rich evidence and show that larger, more productive, and more innovative firms are more likely to become exporters and export more. We also provide some new evidence on the role of governance and management: while there does not seem to be a strong negative effect of family ownership, we find that a higher percentage of family management reduces a firm’s export propensity and export volumes. When we turn to exports to China and India, we find that firms exporting there must be on average larger, more productive, and more innovative than firms exporting elsewhere

international linkages value added trade and firm productivity in latin america and the caribbean

This chapter addresses the following research questions: (i) Are firms characterized by international linkages more productive than other firms? (ii) Are those belonging to industries more involved in GVCs even more productive? To this end, we combine the World Bank Enterprise Survey dataset with the new OECD-WTO TiVA dataset and present three main empirical exercises: (1) an analysis of productivity premia associated with participation in international trade and presence of inward FDI; (2) a Cobb–Douglas output function expanded to firms' international linkages; (3) a further expanded version of the above relationship including the TiVA-based indicators of value added trade and industry participation and position in the global value chain. Our empirical outcomes confirm the presence of a positive causal relationship between participation in international activities and firm performance in the LAC region. Focusing on four big Latin American countries we show that the actual level of involvement into GVCs matters as well

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

Exhausted-like CD8+ T cell phenotypes linked to C-peptide preservation in alefacept-treated T1D subjects

Clinical trials of biologic therapies in type 1 diabetes (T1D) aim to mitigate autoimmune destruction of pancreatic β cells through immune perturbation and serve as resources to elucidate immunological mechanisms in health and disease. In the T1DAL trial of alefacept (LFA3-Ig) in recent-onset T1D, endogenous insulin production was preserved in 30% of subjects for 2 years after therapy. Given our previous findings linking exhausted-like CD8+ T cells to beneficial response in T1D trials, we applied unbiased analyses to sorted CD8+ T cells to evaluate their potential role in T1DAL. Using RNA sequencing, we found that greater insulin C-peptide preservation was associated with a module of activation- and exhaustion-associated genes. This signature was dissected into 2 CD8 memory phenotypes through correlation with cytometry data. These cells were hypoproliferative, shared expanded rearranged TCR junctions, and expressed exhaustion-associated markers including TIGIT and KLRG1. The 2 phenotypes could be distinguished by reciprocal expression of CD8+ T and NK cell markers (GZMB, CD57, and inhibitory killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor [iKIR] genes), versus T cell activation and differentiation markers (PD-1 and CD28). These findings support previous evidence linking exhausted-like CD8+ T cells to successful immune interventions for T1D, while suggesting that multiple inhibitory mechanisms can promote this beneficial cell state