Ana Paula Africano

Which manufacturing firms learn by exporting

Using a longitudinal database (1996–2003) at the plant level, this article analyses the causal nexus between international trade engagement and productivity in Portugal. By applying the propensity score matching and a differences-in-differences estimator, the learning-by-exporting hypothesis is analysed in particular. A higher growth of labour productivity and total factor productivity is found for new exporting firms. To uncover the channels through which the learning effects are driven, the same methodology is applied to some sub-samples. Learning effects are higher for new exporters that are also importers or start importing at the same time. Other factors affecting learning ability are found in firms exporting to more developed markets, in those that achieve a certain threshold of export intensity and mainly for those firms that belong to sectors where Portugal has a comparative disadvantage.

¿Las empresas más productivas se autoseleccionan para exportar? Aplicación de una prueba para el caso de Portugal

Utilizando una base de datos longitudinal (1996-2003) a nivel de empresa, este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar la tesis de que las empresas nacionales mas productivas autoseleccionan los mercados de exportacion. La autoseleccion y el aprendizaje mediante la exportacion son dos tesis no mutuamente excluyentes que tratan de explicar la alta correlacion entre la participacion en el comercio internacional de las empresas y su rendimiento superior. En general, encontramos evidencia de autoseleccion para los mercados de exportacion. Sin embargo, existe una heterogeneidad significativa en funcion del destino de las ventas, del estatus importador de las empresas antes de la exportacion y de las peculiaridades de los sectores a los que estas pertenecen.

Which Portuguese firms are more innovative? The importance of multinationals and exporters: Pillars of the Future Global Economy

In this study we test the trade Global Engagement hypothesis in which firms more globally engaged – either multinationals or exporters – are more innovative. The test is applied to 4818 Portuguese enterprises ́ data for the period 2002-2004 through the use of the fourth Portuguese Community Innovation Survey. We estimated several Knowledge Production Functions assuming that knowledge outputs result from the combination of some knowledge inputs with the flow of ideas coming from existing stock of knowledge. We found that more internationally exposed firms create more knowledge output, than their domestic counterparts; indeed, more globalized firms use more inputs and have the opportunity to use a larger stock of knowledge. /otwithstand, the observed superiority of more internationally exposed firms is also the result of their globalized nature, not directly connected with knowledge inputs or information flows.