Are Services Different Exporters?

Are Capital Intensive Firms the Biggest Exporters?

This paper starts out from the observation that the export shares of firms (export to sales ratio) vary greatly among firms, and tend to be systematically related to the firms' capital labour ratios. This observation cannot be explained by e.g. the standard Melitz model, since it predicts that all exporting firms have identical export shares. In our model, we relate the difference in export sha...

Gibrat’s Law: Are the Services Different?

Several noted surveys on intra-industry dynamics have recently reached the conclusion from a large body of evidence that Gibrat’s Law does not hold. However, almost all of these studies have been based on manufacturing. There are compelling reasons to doubt whether these findings hold for the services. In this paper we examine whether the basic tenet underlying Gibrat’s Law – that growth rates ...

Are Exporters in Africa Facing Reduced Availability of Trade Finance

Indirect exporters

Indirect Exporters are defined as firms exporting through a trade intermediary. Despite numerous recent appearances in theoretical work, empirical evidence comparing these firms to uniquely domestic firms and Direct Exporters does not exist. I show that in Eastern Europe these firms do, as predicted by the theoretical literature, lie between domestic firms and Direct Exporters for a range of pe...

Exports , foreign direct investments and productivity : Are services firms different ?

This paper contributes to the literature on international firm activities and firm performance by providing the first evidence on the link of productivity and both exports and foreign direct investment (fdi) in services firms from a highly developed country. It uses unique new data from Germany one of the leading actors on the world market for services that merge information from regular survey...