Jeongmeen Suh

What Determines Small Champions’ Export Performance? Evidence from Korea Firm-Level Data*

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often have different export behavior than bigger firms, in spite of their high productivity. To understand the behavior of these small champions, we develop a theoretical framework that analyzes the factors that affect firm export performance, from the decision to start exporting (the extensive export margin) and how much they will export (the intensive export margin). When we use Korean firm-level data to test our model, we find that productivity plays an important role in the firm export entry decision, and fixed export costs are important determinants of fractions of export intensity. We use our empirical results to explore the policy implications of policy interventions focused on SME export.

Strategic Trade Policy with Border Carbon Adjustments

This article further develops a framework of Brander and Spencer (1984) by adding Border Carbon Adjustments (BCA) to compensate for cost differences caused by emissions reduction among countries. On a level playing field, BCA is one-directional in that only a country with a more stringent carbon tax can impose BCA on its imports. In a two-stage game with a reciprocal market model, governments move first by choosing domestic carbon tax rate on their own firms. The level of BCA is determined by both home and foreign carbon taxes. Firms take taxes and BCA as a given and compete by choosing either output levels or prices. The right to impose BCA makes two countries unequal in that a country with the right can extend the influence range of its domestic carbon tax on imports while the other cannot. Besides equalizing carbon costs across countries, BCA changes the incentive structure regarding governments’ domestic climate policy choices, as governments try to maximize their countries’ welfare. Our findings are robust whether the competition is Cournot or Bertrand because the effect by BCA dominates the mode of competition.

Determinants of Exports: Productivity or Fixed Export Costs

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework to take several key determinants of exports into consideration and to propose an empirical model to identify which factors affect firms’ export performance, whether to start exporting (export extensity) and how much they will export (export intensity). Extending the Melitz (2003) model, in our theoretical part, we consider firm heterogeneity in two dimensions; fixed cost as well as productivity. As a result, when a firm with low productivity engages in exporting, there can also be a higher productive firm facing relatively high fixed cost. This allows us to resolve the difficulty in interpreting controversial empirical results, for example, whether productivity or firm size is a key determinant of export. Furthermore, in our empirical part, by using Korean firm-level data, we conclude that productivity plays an important role when a firm decides whether to start exporting, while fixed export costs variables are important determinants of fractions of outputs to be exported.