Natalia Trofimenko

Learning by Exporting: Does It Matter Where One Learns? Evidence from Colombian Manufacturing Firms

Learning‐by‐exporting proponents argue that exporting increases firm‐level productivity by exposing producers to new technologies or through product quality upgrading. This study is based on the observation that the technological superiority and severity of product quality requirements are not the same in all export markets. If learning occurs through the acquisition of new knowledge, exporting to less developed markets should not generate as much productivity growth as exporting to advanced countries. Using firm‐level data from Colombia, I demonstrate that exporting to advanced countries generates the highest productivity premium and that the ability to benefit from exporting in general and exporting to advanced markets in particular increases monotonically as one moves along the conditional productivity distribution.

The Use and Abuse of Export Subsidies: Evidence from Colombia

We evaluate the impact of firm‐specific export subsidies on exports in Colombia. Using a two‐step selection model, we predict firm‐specific subsidy amounts that can be explained by the characteristics that determine firms’ eligibility for government support and its amount. Drawing on the accounts of the discretionary allocation of subsidies in developing countries, we interpret the discrepancy between the predicted and the observed subsidy amounts as a proxy for a firms ties to government officials. Controlling for observable and unobservable firm characteristics as well as persistence in exporting, we find that although, in general, subsidies exhibit a positive impact on export volumes, this impact is diminishing in subsidy size and in the degree of a firms connectedness.

Foreign ownership and the export and import propensities of developing-country firms

This paper uses micro-data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership affects the likelihood of manufacturers in developing countries to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for differences across firms in terms of labor productivity and other characteristics, we find that foreign ownership is an economically important and statistically significant determinant of the likelihood that a firm will export and/or import. Foreign ownership raises the propensity to export by over 17 and the propensity to import by more than 13 percentage points. The effects are even bigger for the lowest-income countries.