One of the stylized facts from the literature on international activities of heterogeneous firms is the existence of a positive exporter productivity premium on average, exporting firms are more productive than firms that sell on the national market only. In this paper, we look at the productivity distribution of both exporting and non-exporting firms in German manufacturing industries. We reco...

We examine the participation of public and private firms in merger waves and productivity outcomes. We show that public firms participate more than private firms as buyers and sellers of assets and their participation is more cyclical. Public firms are affected more by credit spreads and aggregate market valuation. Public firm transactions are also impacted positively by their stock market valu...

When firms make decisions about which product to manufacture at a more disaggregated level than observed in the data, measured firm productivity will reflect both true differences in productivity and non-random decisions about which products to manufacture. This paper examines a model of industry equilibrium where firms endogenously sort across products. We use the model to characterize the dir...

This paper attempts to explain the level and dynamics of firm level productivity through a model of convergence, for UK service sector firms over the period 1988 to 1998. Firms of different characteristics have different productivity levels and rates of catch-up. We find strong evidence to relate differences in the rate of convergence to the ownership status of the firm and weak evidence that i...

In this paper I develop a dynamic structural model in which a firm makes rational decisions to buy or sell assets in the presence of idiosyncratic and aggregate productivity shocks. By identifying equilibrium asset prices, the model produces an industry with a well-defined panel of firms and jointly analyzes firms’ investment decisions and the aggregate activity of asset sales over the business...

A recent survey of 54 micro-econometric studies reveals that exporting firms are more productive than non-exporters. On the other hand, previous empirical studies show that exporting does not necessarily improve productivity. One possible reason for this result is that most previous studies are restricted to analysing the relationship between a firm’s export status and the growth of its labour ...

This paper provides a direct test of how fixed export costs and productivity jointly determine firm-level export behavior. Using Chilean data, we construct indices of fixed export costs for each industry-region-year triplet and match them to domestic firms. Our empirical results show that firms facing higher fixed export costs are less likely to export, while those with higher productivity expo...

We investigate Spanish manufacturing firms’ global sourcing decisions with regard to their ownership structure and their locational choice of intermediate input production by exploring a firm-level panel data set covering the years 2000-2007. We distinguish four sourcing categories (foreign integration, foreign outsourcing, domestic integration, domestic outsourcing) thus providing a much more ...

Using micro evidence from manufacturing and services firms located in 55 African countries, this paper shows that better management practice, reflected by international management certification, helps firms to raise productivity. Larger and older firms and firms operating closer to the technological frontier are more likely to possess international management standards certification, as do firm...

â â â  â â â â â â  â  abstract â  based on the recent literature of heterogeneous firms, productive firms self select themselves into foreign markets. in this framework, there is a productivity rise prior to exporting. on the other words, different export performance across firms is linked to their heterogeneity. â  the main purpose of the present paper is to examine the so-called hypothesis o...