Robust estimates of exporter productivity premia in German business services enterprises

A large and growing number of micro-econometric studies show that exporting firms are more productive than firms that sell their products on the home market only. This so-called exporter productivity premium qualifies as a stylized fact. Only recently researchers started to look at the role of extreme observations, or outliers, in shaping these findings. These studies use micro-econometric methods that are robust against outliers to show that very small shares of firms with extreme values drive the result. The large exporter productivity premium found for samples of firms including outliers are dramatically smaller in samples without these extreme observations. Evidence on this, however, is limited so far to firms from manufacturing industries. This note adds comparable evidence for firms from the business services industries. We find that the estimated exporter productivity premium is statistically significant and relevant from an economic point of view when a standard fixed effects estimator is used to control for unobserved firm characteristics, but that it drops to zero when a robust estimator is applied.Exporter productivity premium, services firms, robust estimation, panel data

Exports and Profitability – First Evidence for German Business Services Enterprises

We use the unique recently released German business services statistics panel to conduct the first comprehensive empirical study on the relationship between exports and profitability for the business services sector. We document a negative profitability differential of services exporters compared to non-exporters that is statistically significant, though rather small, when observed firm characteristics and unobserved firm specific effects are controlled for. We find that export-starters in services are less profitable than non-starters, even two years before they begin to export, pointing to self-selection of less profitable firms into export markets. We use a recently developed continuous treatment approach to investigate the causal impact of exports on profits. The estimated dose-response function shows an s-shaped relationship between profitability in 2005 and firms’ export-sales ratio in 2004. Enterprises with a very small share of exports in total sales have a lower rate of profit than non-exporting firms. Then, with an increase in export intensity the rate of profit increases, too. However, even at the maximum the average profitability of the exporters is not, or only slightly, higher than the average rate of profit of the non-exporting firms. Given that Germany is one of the leading actors on the world market for services, the evidence provided here is interesting on its own. Furthermore, it can serve as a benchmark for future studies using comparable data for firms from services industries in other countries.Exports, profitability, business services enterprises, Germany

The Quality of the KombiFiD-Sample of Business Services Enterprises: Evidence from a Replication Study

This study tests whether the KombiFiD sample can be regarded as a high quality data set for empirical research on enterprises from business services industries. It performs an empirical investigation using the original data in a first step and replicates exactly this investigation using the KombiFiD sample in a second step. We find that large business services firms are oversampled in the KombiFiD agreement sample which leads to a higher share of exporting business services firms compared to the original data. After controlling for firm size and industries results based on the original data and on the KombiFiD sample are highly similar for West German firms. Therefore, the KombiFiD sample can be regarded as a sound base for empirical studies on West German firms from business services industries. For East Germany, however, the number of business services firms seems to be too small for empirical analyses, at least in the field of firm’s export participation.KombiFiD, Germany, business services firms

Higher Productivity in Importing German Manufacturing Firms: Self-Selection, Learning from Importing, or Both?

This paper uses a newly available comprehensive panel data set for manufacturing enterprises from 2001 to 2005 to document the first empirical results on the relationship between imports and productivity for Germany, a leading actor on the world market for goods. Furthermore, for the first time the direction of causality in this relationship is investigated systematically by testing for self-selection of more productive firms into importing, and for productivity-enhancing effects of imports ('learning-by-importing'). We find a positive link between importing and productivity. From an empirical model with fixed enterprise effects that controls for firm size, industry, and unobservable firm heterogeneity we see that the premia for trading internationally are about the same in West and East Germany. Compared to firms that do not trade at all two-way traders do have the highest premia, followed by firms that only export, while firms that only import have the smallest estimated premia. We find evidence for a positive impact of productivity on importing, pointing to self-selection of more productive enterprises into imports, but no evidence for positive effects of importing on productivity due to learning-by-importing.imports, exports, productivity, enterprise panel data, Germany

Higher Productivity in Importing German Manufacturing Firms: Self-selection, Learning from Importing, or Both?

This paper uses a newly available comprehensive panel data set for manufacturing enterprises from 2001 to 2005 to document the first empirical results on the relationship between imports and productivity for Germany, a leading actor on the world market for goods. Furthermore, for the first time the direction of causality in this relationship is investigated systematically by testing for self-selection of more productive firms into importing, and for productivity-enhancing effects of imports (‘learning-by-importing’). We find a positive link between importing and productivity. From an empirical model with fixed enterprise effects that controls for firm size, industry, and unobservable firm heterogeneity we see that the premia for trading internationally are about the same in West and East Germany. Compared to firms that do not trade at all two-way traders do have the highest premia, followed by firms that only export, while firms that only import have the smallest estimated premia. We find evidence for a positive impact of productivity on importing, pointing to self-selection of more productive enterprises into imports, but no evidence for positive effects of importing on productivity due to learning-by-importing.imports, exports, productivity, enterprise panel data, Germany

Self-Selection into Export Markets by Business Services Firms: Evidence from France, Germany and the United Kingdom

This study reports results from an empirical investigation of business services sector firms that (start to) export, comparing exporters to firms that serve the national market only. We estimate identically specified empirical models using comparable enterprise level data from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Exporters are more productive and pay higher wages on average in all three countries. Results for profitability differ across borders – profitability of exporters is significantly smaller in Germany, significantly larger in France, and does not differ significantly in the UK. The results for wages and productivity hold in the years before the export start, which indicates self-selection into exporting of more productive services firms that pay higher wages. The surprising finding of self-selection of less profitable German business services firms into exporting does not show up among firms from France and the UK where no statistically significant relationship between profitability and starting to export is found.business services firms, exports, self-selection, France, Germany, UK

Export, Import und Produktivität wissensintensiver KMUs in Deutschland

Anschließend an die breite Literatur zur Untersuchung von Produktivitätsdifferentialen zwischen international aktiven und nicht international aktiven Unternehmen liefert der vorliegende Beitrag erstmals Ergebnisse für Deutschland die sowohl Export- als auch Importaktivitäten berücksichtigen. Für Kleinst-, kleine und mittlere Unternehmen findet sich folgende Hierarchie: Unternehmen, die entweder exportieren oder importieren sind produktiver als Unternehmen, die ausschließlich auf dem nationalen Markt aktiv sind; Unternehmen, die sowohl exportieren als auch importieren, weisen die höchste Produktivität auf. Unternehmen die nur importieren sind zumeist produktiver als Unternehmen, die nur exportieren. Dies gilt in beiden Teilen Deutschlands und sowohl für wissensintensive als auch für nicht wissensintensive Industrien. Der Vergleich wissensintensive vs. nicht wissensintensive Industrien zeigt in allen Größenklasse eine deutlich stärkere Beteiligung wissensintensiver Unternehmen an internationalen Aktivitäten. Signifikante Unterschiede hinsichtlich der Produktivitätsprämien konnten auf der Ebene der Größenklassen jedoch nicht gefunden werden.wissensintensive Industrie, KMU, Import, Export

Import, Export und Produktivität in niedersächsischen Unternehmen des Verarbeitenden Gewerbes

Dieser Beitrag nutzt das neu im Forschungsdatenzentrum der Statistischen Ämter verfügbare Umsatzsteuerstatistik-Panel mit Daten aus den Jahren 2001 bis 2005 für eine erste Untersuchung der Import- und Exportaktivitäten niedersächsischer Industrieunternehmen im Vergleich zu Unternehmen aus dem übrigen Westdeutschland und aus Ostdeutschland. Er dokumentiert Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten bei der Beteiligung am internationalen Handel und analysiert die Zusammenhänge zwischen Produktivität, Importen und Exporten. Die Beteiligung der niedersächsischen Unternehmen am internationalen Handel ist geringer als im übrigen Westdeutschland, aber höher als in Ostdeutschland. In Niedersachsen wie im übrigen Westdeutschland und in Ostdeutschland gilt, dass im Vergleich zu Unternehmen, die keinen internationalen Handel betreiben, die Unternehmen den höchsten Produktivitätsvorsprung aufweisen, die sowohl exportieren als auch importieren. An zweiter Stelle kommen die Unternehmen, die nur exportieren; an dritter Stelle finden sich die Unternehmen, die ausschließlich importieren. Diese Produktivitätsunterschiede für die Unternehmen aus den verschiedenen Gruppen unterscheiden sich zwischen den Teilen Deutschlands nur geringfügig.Import, Export, Produktivität, Firmendaten, Niedersachsen

Efficient numerical techniques for perspective shape from shading

The shape-from-shading (SfS) problem is a classic problem in computer vision. The task in SfS is to compute on the basis of the shading variation in a given 2-D image the 3-D depth of the depicted scene. The corresponding mathematical model eventually leads to a boundary value problem for a Hamilton-Jacobi equation. In this paper we evaluate and compare suitable numerical methods. We begin with a brief discussion of four state-of-the-art-approaches in this field. Then we give an extensive numerical comparison, thus evaluating recent improvements in this area. In the course of doing this, we introduce efficient variations of existing schemes. By this systematic investigation, we complement and extend previous works on the numerical side. The paper is finished by a conclusion