Results

Journal article

Review of Economics and Statistics:

Managing export complexity: the role of service outsourcing

As manufacturing firms expand globally, business services such as advertising and legal support become essential for entering new markets. Exploiting exogenous demand shocks, we document that French manufacturers increas...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What happens in Paris, does not stay in Paris: trade fairs and search and matching frictions

Search and matching frictions keep firms from forming international trade links. Trade fairs are a common, often subsidized remedy, yet causal evidence is scarce. We study Hungarian firms at the 1900 Paris World Exhibiti...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade liberalization and third-market effects

We study how the end of the quota system for textiles and clothing products in the American and European markets on January 1, 2005, affected China?s exports to third countries, where policy was unchanged. Using a differ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Growth insured: export credit insurance and trade

We estimate the causal effect of short-term export credit insurance (ECI) on firm-level exports using administrative data from China?s export credit agency merged with customs and tax records. Exploiting quasi-random var...Read more...

Journal article

Canadian Journal of Economics:

Evaluating the impact of export finance support on firm-level export performance: evidence from Pakistan

This paper evaluates the impact of two large export finance support schemes on firm-level export performance. The Export Finance Scheme (EFS) and the Long-Term Finance Facility for Plant & Machinery (LTFF) provide loans ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Tickets to the global market: first US patent award and Chinese firm exports

We investigate how international patent activity enables firms from emerging economies to thrive in the global marketplace. We match Chinese customs data to US patent records, and leverage the quasi-random assignment of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Personnel is policy (implementation): bureaucrats and the Korean export miracle

How much does the effect of industrial policy depend on the capacity of the bureaucrats implementing it? We exploit the rotation schedule of managers of South Korea's export promotion offices in 87 countries between 1965...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Service offshoring and export experience

Service inputs significantly influence export costs and firm internationalisation. A new dataset on French firms? participation in global value chains reveals that experienced exporters are more likely to source services...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating the impact of export finance support on firm-level export performance: evidence from Pakistan

This paper evaluates the impact of two large export finance support schemes on firm-level export performance. The Export Finance Scheme (EFS) and the Long-Term Finance Facility for Plant & Machinery (LTFF), provide loans...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Estimating the longevity of electric vehicles: what do 300 million MOT test results tell us?

Knowing how long the average vehicle remains roadworthy before being scrapped is a crucial input into life cycle assessment (LCA) and total cost of ownership (TCO) studies of different vehicle powertrains. This study lev...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Tickets to the global market: first US patent awards and Chinese firm exports

We investigate how international patent activity enables firms from emerging economies to thrive in the global marketplace. We match Chinese customs data to US patent records and leverage the quasi-random assignment of U...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Sequentially exporting products across countries

Exploiting disaggregated data on French exporters, we show that firms expand their product scope and geographical presence sequentially. This process of internationalization is uneven over time, exhibiting more volatilit...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Managerial input and firm performance. Evidence from a policy experiment

We study the effects of a subsidy program designed to boost small and medium enterprises' export capabilities through a Temporary Export Manager (TEM), hired for at least 6 months to provide consulting on how to reach fo...Read more...

Journal article

Economics Letters:

Firm-destination heterogeneity and the distribution of export intensity

We derive closed-form expressions for the distribution of export intensity when firm-destination-specific revenue shifters are distributed gamma, Frechet and Weibull in a two-country model of trade with isoelastic demand...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

The twin peaks of the export intensity distribution

Received wisdom suggests that most exporters sell most of their output domestically. We show, however, that the distribution of export intensity varies substantially across countries and is often bimodal, displaying ?twi...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Brexit: the major trade disruption came after the UK-EU agreement took effect in 2021

The impact of Brexit on UK trade is a highly contested topic. Rebecca Freeman, Kalina Manova, Thomas Prayer, and Thomas Sampson summarise the findings of new research on how Brexit has affected the UK's goods trade with ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Managing export complexity: The role of service outsourcing

As manufacturing firms expand globally, business services like advertising and legal support become essential for accessing new markets. This paper investigates how firms organize the provision of such market access serv...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Firm export responses to tariff hikes

We study how firms react to unexpected increases in import tariffs. We identify our results from a sudden removal of American preferential tariffs applied on Argentine imports under the Generalized System of Preferences,...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Service offshoring and export experience

Service inputs are a key component of the costs of exporting, and contribute to explain the process of internationalization of firms. A new dataset on the participation of French firms in global value chains reveals that...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Sequential exporting across countries and products

How do exporters expand their product scope and geographical presence? We argue that new exporters are uncertain about their profitability in different countries and products, but learn it as they start to export. As a c...Read more...

Journal article

European Economic Review:

All these worlds are yours, except India: the effectiveness of cash subsidies to export in Nepal

This paper studies the impact of a `textbook? ad-valorem export subsidy on firm-level export performance. The Cash Incentive Scheme for Exports (CISE) program offered by the government of Nepal offers a cash subsidy to f...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

All these worlds are yours, except India: the effectiveness of cash subsidies to export in Nepal

This paper studies the impact of a `textbook' ad-valorem export subsidy on firm-level export performance. The Cash Incentive Scheme for Exports (CISE) program offered by the government of Nepal offers a cash subsidy to f...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade, productivity and (mis)allocation

We examine the gains from globalization in the presence of firm heterogeneity and potential resource misallocation. We show theoretically that without distortions, bilateral and export liberalizations increase aggregate ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The heterogeneous impact of market size on innovation: evidence from French firm-level exports

We analyze how demand conditions faced by a firm impacts its innovation decisions. To disentangle the direction of causality between innovation and demand conditions, we construct a firm-level export demand shock which r...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Special economic zones and WTO compliance: evidence from the Dominican Republic

Special economic zones (SEZ), one of the most important instruments of industrial policy used in developing countries, often impose export share requirements (ESR). That is, firms located in SEZ are required to export mo...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

The buyer margins of firms? exports

We use detailed data on exporters from Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay as well as on their buyers to show that: aggregate exports are disproportionally driven by few multi-buyers exporters; and each multi-buyer exporter'...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Firm-to-firm connections in Colombian imports

The vast majority of world trade flows is between firms. Only recently has research in international trade started to emphasize the importance of the connections between exporters and importers both in aggregate trade fl...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Special economic zones and WTO compliance: evidence from the Dominican Republic

Special economic zones (SEZ), one of the most important instruments of industrial policy used in developing countries, often impose export share requirements (ESR). That is, firms located in SEZ are required to export mo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Twin peaks

Received wisdom suggests that most exporters sell the majority of their output domestically. In this paper, however, we show that the distribution of export intensity not only varies substantially across countries, but i...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Exporter dynamics and partial-year effects

Two identical firms who start exporting in different months, one each in January and December, will report dramatically different exports for the first calendar year. This partial-year effect biases down firstyear export...Read more...

Journal article

The World Economy:

Service trade and occupational tasks: an empirical investigation

Using microdata for Belgium, we investigate the relationship between changes in the task content of production and the rise in the number of service exporters. We show that occupational tasks changes display an extremely...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Specialization in bank lending: evidence from exporting firms

We develop an empirical approach for identifying specialization in bank lending using granular data on borrower activities. We illustrate the approach by characterizing bank specialization by export market, combining ban...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Development Economics:

Subsidies with export share requirements in China

A subsidy is subject to an export share requirement (ESR) when firms must export more than a certain share of their output to receive it. Such incentives are frequently found in free trade zones, export processing regime...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Multi-product firms and product quality

We examine the global operations of multi-product firms. We present a flexible heterogeneous-firm trade model with either limited or strong scope for quality differentiation. Using customs data for China during 2002-2006...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The diffusion of knowledge via managers' mobility

Better managers and managerial practices lead to better firm performance. Yet, little is known about what happens when managers move across firms. Does a firm hiring a good manager improve its performance? If yes is ther...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Multi-product firms and product quality

We examine the global operations of multi-product firms. We present a flexible heterogeneous-firm trade model with either limited or strong scope for quality differentiation. Using customs data for China during 2002?2006...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Protectionism through exporting: subsidies with export share requirements in China

We study the effect of subsidies subject to export share requirements (ESR) - that is, conditioned on a firm exporting at least a given fraction of its output - on exports, the intensity of competition and welfare, throu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Exporter dynamics and partial-year effects

Two identical firms that start exporting in different months, one each in January and December, will report dramatically different exports for the first calendar year. This partial-year effect biases down first year expo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Special and differential treatment for developing countries

Special and Differential Treatment for Developing Countries (SDT) constitutes a central feature of the GATT/WTO system. Its formal goal is to foster export-led growth in developing countries. Its theoretical foundations ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unraveling firms: demand, productivity and markups heterogeneity

We develop a novel framework that simultaneously allows recovering heterogeneity in demand, quantity TFP and markups across firms while leaving the correlation between the three dimensions unrestricted. We accomplish thi...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Institutions and export dynamics

We study how contract enforcement and export experience shape firm export dynamics in an environment with incomplete information. We show that exporters start with higher volumes and sell for longer periods in countries ...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economic Studies:

Trade induced technical change? The impact of Chinese imports on innovation, IT and productivity

We examine the impact of Chinese import competition on broad measures of technical change - patenting, IT, and TFP - using new panel data across twelve European countries from 1996 to 2007. In particular, we establish th...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

Intermediaries in international trade: products and destinations

This paper examines the factors that give rise to intermediaries in exporting and explores the implications for trade volumes. Export intermediaries such as wholesalers serve different markets and export different produc...Read more...

Journal article

The World Bank Economic Review:

The political economy of trade policy: gone for good? Subsidies with export share requirements in China: 2002-13

This paper presents a simple model of subsidies with export share requirements (ESR) in a heterogeneous firm environment. A two-country general equilibrium version of the model with a single 100% ESR is calibrated using ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Spatial exporters

In this paper, we provide causal evidence that firms serve new markets which are geographically close to their prior export destinations with a higher probability than standard gravity models predict. We quantify the imp...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gone for good? Subsidies with export share requirements in China: 2002-2013

This paper presents a simple model of subsidies with export share requirements (ESR) in a heterogeneous firm environment. A two-country general equilibrium version of the model with a single 100% ESR is calibrated using ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The buyer margins of firms' exports

We use detailed data on exporters from Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay as well as on their buyers to show that aggregate exports are disproportionally driven by few multi-buyers exporters whose foreign sales of any produ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... China's trading success: the role of pure exporter subsidies

China's government provides a wide range of incentives to encourage firms to produce almost exclusively for the foreign market. The authors analyse the impact of these 'pure exporter subsidies' on both the Chinese econom...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

China's Pure Exporter Subsidies

One third of Chinese exporters sell more than ninety percent of their production abroad. We argue that this distinctive pattern is attributable to a wide range of subsidies that provide incentives to these ?pure exporter...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Sexism at work

Women have, on average, been less well-paid than men throughout history. Prior to 1900, most economic historians see the gender wage gap as a reflection of men?s greater strength and correspondingly higher productivity. ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Intermediaries in International Trade: Direct Versus Indirect Modes of Export

This paper examines the factors that give rise to intermediaries in exporting and explores the implications for trade volumes. Export intermediaries such as wholesalers serve different markets and export different produc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spatial Exporters

In this paper, we provide causal evidence that firms serve new markets which are geographically close to their prior export destinations with a higher probability than standard gravity models predict. We quantify the imp...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Success and Failure of African Exporters

Using a novel dataset with transactions level exports data from four African countries (Malawi, Mali, Senegal and Tanzania), this paper uncovers evidence of a high degree of experimentation at the extensive margin associ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender, Productivity and the Nature of Work and Pay: Evidence from the Late Nineteenth-Century Tobacco Industry

Women have, on average, been less well-paid than men throughout history. Prior to 1900, most economic historians see the gender wage gap as a reflection of men?s greater strength and correspondingly higher productivity. ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Managers' Mobility, Trade Status and Wages

This paper investigates whether the arrival of managers with export experience, i.e. experience acquired through participation in the export activity of previous employers, is related to firms' international trade status...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade induced technical change? The impact of Chinese imports on innovation, IT and productivity

We examine the impact of Chinese import competition on broad measures of technical change - patenting, IT, R&D, TFP and management practices ? using new panel data across twelve European countries between 1996-2007. We c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Determinants of Vertical Integration in Export Processing: Theory and Evidence from China

Using detailed product-level export data for China and a variant of the Antras and Helpman (2004) model that includes investments in component search, we examine the sectoral determinants of foreign direct investment (FD...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Sequential Exporting

Firms need to incur substantial sunk costs to break in foreign markets, yet many give up exporting shortly after their first experience, which typically involves very small sales. Conversely, other new exporters shoot up...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Impact of Aging and Technological Relatedness on Agglomeration Externalities: A Survival Analysis

We study localization, urbanization, and Jacobs? externality effects on plant survival in Sweden (1970-2004). We focus on two questions: (1) do agglomeration externalities change with the age of plants? (2) using new inf...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Re-Investment and the Survival of Foreign-Owned Plants

Foreign-owned plants have higher conditional exit rates, but this paper tests the hypothesis that re-investment 'embeds' these plants, leading to significantly longer survival time durations. A unique dataset is used for...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Private Sector Employment Growth, 1998-2004: A Panel Analysis of British Workplaces

Using nationally representative panel data for British private sector workplaces this paper points to the importance of distinguishing between workplace and firm size when analysing employment growth, and finds that the ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trust-Based Trade

Weak enforcement of international contracts can substantially reduce international trade. We develop a model where agents build reputations to overcome the difficulties that this institutional failure causes in a context...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Falling Trade Costs, Heterogeneous Firms and Industry Dynamics

This paper examines the response of industries and firms to changes in trade costs. Several new firm-level models of international trade with heterogeneous firms predict that industry productivity will rise as trade cost...Read more...