Richard Kneller

Firm Heterogeneity, Exporting and Foreign Direct Investment

A rapidly expanding literature on firm heterogeneity and firm level globalisation strategies has developed over the last decade. There are new insights on why some firms export and others do not, why some firms fail to survive in export markets and some choose to produce overseas rather than export. This article provides a synthesis and evaluation of this literature. It reviews both new theories of firms in an open economy context and the extensive microeconometric evidence base, which has now developed. It highlights the implications of this evidence base for policy and includes an assessment of how the research agenda may evolve.

Fiscal policy and growth: evidence from OECD countries

Abstract Is the evidence consistent with the predictions of endogenous growth models that the structure of taxation and public expenditure can affect the steady-state growth rate? Much previous research needs to be re-evaluated because it ignores the biases associated with incomplete specification of the government budget constraint. We show these biases to be substantial and, correcting for them, find strong support for the Barro model (1990, Government spending in a simple model of endogenous growth. Journal of Political Economy 98 (1), s103–117, for a panel of 22 OECD countries, 1970–95. Specifically we find that (1) distortionary taxation reduces growth, whilst non-distortionary taxation does not; and (2) productive government expenditure enhances growth, whilst non-productive expenditure does not.

Testing the endogenous growth model: public expenditure, taxation, and growth over the long run

Endogenous growth models, such as Barro (1990), predict that government expenditure and taxation will have both temporary and permanent effects on growth. We test this prediction using panels of annual and period-averaged data for OECD countries during 1970-95, isolating long-run from short-run fiscal effects. Our results strongly support the endogenous growth model and suggest that long-run fiscal effects are not fully captured by period averaging and static panel methods. Unlike previous investigations, our estimates are free from biases associated with incomplete specification of the government budget constraint and do not appear to result from endogeneity of fiscal or investment variables.

Industrial Linkages and Export Spillovers from FDI

In this paper we investigated the hypothesis of export spillovers from foreign multinationals to domestic firms using a data set of UK manufacturing firms from 1992 to 1999. Unlike previous studies we allow not only for the possibility of horizontal (i.e. intra-industry) and regional externalities, but also for vertical ones (i.e. inter-industry: forward and backward). Deploying the Heckman selection process we modelled the two decisions of whether to export or not, and how much to export, separately. The results indicate that the decision to start exporting is positively associated with the presence of foreign firms in the same industry and region; furthermore, export-oriented foreign affiliates seem to be the source of stronger export spillovers. The decision concerning how much to export is affected positively by foreign firms in downstream industries and by those in the same industry and region that do not export.

Exporting and Productivity in the United Kingdom

This paper investigates various aspects of the links between exporting and productivity for a large sample of firms in the United Kingdom. We find evidence to support the proposition that sunk costs are important. Self selection takes place, with larger and more productive firms entering export markets, and firms have to become more productive in order to enter. Industry characteristics also affect the likelihood of entry--both industrial and spatial agglomeration are important. When we rely on an unmatched sample of firms we can find some evidence of further productivity improvement after entry, but this disappears when we use a matched sample. Our results suggest that policy should avoid simply subsidizing firms that may self select into export promotion policies and focus instead on reducing information asymmetries and supporting development of clusters. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

Frontier Technology and Absorptive Capacity: Evidence from OECD Manufacturing Industries

In this paper, we examine the three facets of technology: its creation, dispersion and absorption. We investigate whether differences in absorptive capacity help to explain cross‐country differences in the level of productivity. We utilize stochastic frontier analysis to investigate two potential sources of this inefficiency – differences in human capital and R&D – for nine industries in 12 Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries over the period 1973–91. We find that inefficiency in production does indeed exist and it depends upon the level of human capital of the countrys workforce. Evidence that the amount of R&D an industry undertakes is also important is less robust.

Does Exporting Lead to Better Performance? A Microeconometric Analysis of Matched Firms

Exporting involves sunk costs, so some firms export while others do not. This proposition derives from a number of models of firm behaviour and has been exposed to microeconometric analysis. Evidence from the latter suggests that exporting firms are generally more productive than non-exporters; they self-select in that they are more productive before they enter export markets; but entry does not make them any more productive. This paper investigates exporting and firm performance for a large panel of UK manufacturing firms applying, for the first time, matching techniques. We find that exporters are more productive and they do self-select. In contrast to other evidence, however, we also find that exporting further increases firm productivity.

Export Market Exit and Performance Dynamics: A Causality Analysis of Matched Firms

As a result of the rapid growth of microeconometric studies of exporting firms, we now know quite a lot about the performance dynamics of firms that enter export markets. We know much less about what happens to performance when firms exit. We apply a difference-in-differences methodology based on matched firms to analyse the performance dynamics firms in UK manufacturing that exited export markets during the period 1991-1997. We find that, on average, exit from foreign markets has a negative albeit weak effect on total factor productivity. But this is confined to the year of exit as we fail to detect any discernible productivity effect due to exit in subsequent years. By contrast exit is found to have a deleterious effect on both employment and output dynamics. The effect on output is sizeable and quite persistent, suggesting that domestic demand was not able to make up for the loss in foreign market shares.

Firm Heterogeneity, Exporting and Foreign Direct Investment: A Survey

A new literature on firm heterogeneity and firm level globalisation strategies has developed rapidly over the last decade. New insights on why some firms export and others do not, why some firms fail to survive in export markets and why some choose to produce overseas rather than export have been generated. This paper provides a survey and evaluation of this literature. It reviews both new theories of the firm in an open economy context and the extensive microeconometric evidence base which has now developed. As well as highlighting the implications of this evidence base for policy, the evaluation also includes an assessment of how the research agenda may evolve in the future.

THE TIMING AND PERSISTENCE OF FISCAL POLICY IMPACTS ON GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM OECD COUNTRIES*

The literatures testing for aggregate short-run or long‐run growth impacts of fiscal policy use quite different methodologies. The former generally focuses on temporary fiscal ‘shocks’; the latter typically have no short‐run dynamics or assume homogeneity. We use regression methods that treat heterogeneous short‐run dynamics explicitly within a long‐run model. Results suggest that previously estimated ‘long‐run’ growth effects of fiscal policy are typically achieved quickly, consistent with results from short‐run models. In principle these short‐run effects ‘persist’; in practice regular fiscal policy changes in OECD countries mean that persistent increases or decreases in growth rates are rare.