Federico Tamagni

The Evolution of the World Trade and the Italian 'Anomaly': A New Look

This work provides an empirical assessment of the ’sophistication’ of the Italian international specialization pattern and of its evolution during the period 1980−2000. In particular we discuss the Italian ’anomaly’, i.e. the evidence that Italy displays a specialization pattern more similar to the one of emerging economies than to the one of countries of comparable level of per-capita income. We show that combining the information coming from a new index measuring the income/productivity content of traded goods, i.e. the PRODY index recently proposed in Hausmann et al. (2005), with the index of Revealed Comparative Advantages (RCA) can shed light on the Italian anomaly. We begin providing a detailed picture of the theoretical and empirical characteristics of the PRODY index. In particular we calculate the index for 1980, 1990 and 2000 mapping its dynamics through that period. Then we describe the characteristic and evolution of the Italian RCA using both parametric and non parametric techniques finding that the Italian pattern of specialization is particularly persistent. Finally, we describe the co-evolution of the PRODY and of the RCA indexes. Our analysis shows that in the last two decades, the world trade has been rapidly changing with Italy becoming increasingly more competitive and specialized in products that are characterized by decreasing income/productivity levels. Thus, while the Italian ’anomaly’ was not a problem in the past, it may have become an obstacle to future growth.

Exporting Under Financial Constraints: Margins, Switching Dynamics and Prices

Using data on cross border transactions together with an informative measure of financing constraints this paper provides new evidence that limited access to external capital narrows the scale of foreign sales, the exporters’ product scope and the number of trade partners. It shows that constrained firms have a reduced probability of adding and a higher probability of dropping products and destinations. Further it documents that constrained firms sell their products at higher prices as compared to unconstrained firms. All the results are robust to specific control for unobserved heterogeneity, self-selection into export and potential endogeneity of the financial constraints proxy.

Financial constraints and firm exports: Accounting for heterogeneity, self-selection and endogeneity

The paper examines the causal effect of financial constraints on firm exports. We exploit a firm-level proxy of constraints based on credit ratings and available for a large panel of Italian exporting and non exporting firms. Our estimation strategy allows to cure for self-selection into exports and endogeneity of financial constraints. At the same time, we can control for unobserved firm fixed effects both in the selection and in the export equation, thus identifying the effect on exports of within firm changes in financial constraints status. We find that financial constraints produce a sizable reduction in the value of firm foreign sales

Innovation strategies and firm growth

In this work, we explore the relations between sales growth and a set of innovation indicators that capture the different sources, modes and results of the innovative activity undertaken within firms. We exploit a rich panel on innovation activity of Spanish manufacturing firms, reporting detailed CIS-type information continuously over the period 2004-2011. Standard GMM-panel estimates of the average effect of innovation activities reveal significant and positive effect for internal R&D, while no effect is found for external sourcing of knowledge (external R&D, acquisition of embodied and disembodied technologies) as well as for output of innovation (process and product innovation). However, fixed-effects quantile regressions reveal that innovation activities, apart from process innovation and disembodied technical change, display a positive effect on high-growth performance. Finally, we find evidence of super-modularity of the growth function, revealing complementarities of internal R&D with product innovation, and between product and process innovation.

Export price adjustments under financial constraints

Exploiting data on product-destination level transactions of a large panel of Italian firms, we provide new evidence on the effect of financial constraints on price variation across exporters. Controlling for firm characteristics and endogeneity, constrained exporters charge higher prices than unconstrained firms exporting in the same product-destination market. The positive price difference increases with horizontal differentiation of products, while it reduces in vertically differentiated products, where there is more scope for quality adjustments. The results are consistent with constrained firms exploiting demand rigidities to keep prices up in the attempt to sustain revenues and escape the constraints.

L'anomalia del modello di specializzazione italiano e l'evoluzione del commercio internazionale

The Italian Anomaly in the Evolution of International Trade - This study offers a quantitative assessment of the international specialization of Italy in view of the evolving patterns of international trade over the period 1980- 2000. The analysis is based upon the co-evolution of the PRODY index, recently proposed in Hausmann et al. (2005), together with the classical Balassa index of revealed comparative advantage. Our findings suggest that Italian specialization is persistent and increasing in sectors characterized by decreasing capacity to sustain economic growth.