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Exporting and Productivity: The Importance of Reallocation

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  • Andrew B Bernard
  • J Bradford Jensen

Abstract

Exporting is often touted as a way to increase economic growth. This paper examines whether exporting has played any role in increasing productivity growth in U.S. manufacturing. While exporting plants have substantially higher productivity levels, there is no evidence that exporting increases plant productivity growth rates. However, within the same industry, exporters do grow faster than non-exporters in terms of both shipments and employment. Exporting is associated with the reallocation of resources from less ecient to more ecient plants. In the aggregate, these reallocation eects are quite large, making up over 40% of total factor productivity growth in the manufacturing sector. Half of this reallocation to more productive plants occurs within industries and the direction of the reallocation is towards exporting plants. The positive contribution of exporters also shows up in import-competing industries and non-tradable sectors.

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  • Andrew B Bernard & J Bradford Jensen, 2001. "Exporting and Productivity: The Importance of Reallocation," Working Papers 01-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:01-02
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    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2001/CES-WP-01-02.pdf
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    2. Badi Baltagi & Peter Egger & Michaela Kesina, 2015. "Sources of productivity spillovers: panel data evidence from China," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 389-402, June.
    3. Jens Matthias Arnold & Katrin Hussinger, 2005. "Export Behavior and Firm Productivity in German Manufacturing: A Firm-Level Analysis," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(2), pages 219-243, July.
    4. Hertel, Thomas & Hummels, David & Ivanic, Maros & Keeney, Roman, 2007. "How confident can we be of CGE-based assessments of Free Trade Agreements?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 611-635, July.
    5. Andersen, Torben M & Sorensen, Allan, 2005. "Product Market Integration, Wages and Inequality," CEPR Discussion Papers 4963, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Facundo Piguillem & Loris Rubini, 2012. "International Trade and the Firm Size Distribution," 2012 Meeting Papers 857, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Martina Lawless, 2009. "Firm export participation: entry, spillovers and tradability," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 665-675.
    8. Trevor Tombe, 2010. "The Missing Food Problem: How Low Agricultural Imports Contribute to International Income and Productivity Differences," Working Papers tecipa-416, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    9. Torben M. Andersen & Allan Sørensen, 2008. "Product Market Integration and Heterogeneity—Rent Sharing and Pricing to Market," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 268-284, May.
    10. Katarzyna Łukiewska & Małgorzata Juchniewicz, 2021. "Identification of the Relationships between Competitive Potential and Competitive Position of the Food Industry in the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-13, April.
    11. Hansson, Pär & Lundin, Nan Nan, 2003. "Exports as an Indicator on or Promoter of Successful Swedish Manufacturing Firms in the 1990s," Working Paper Series 189, Trade Union Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Sourafel Girma & Avid Greenaway & Richard Kneller, 2004. "Does Exporting Increase Productivity? A Microeconometric Analysis of Matched Firms," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(5), pages 855-866, November.
    13. Thomas W. Hertel, 2006. "A Survey of Findings on the Poverty Impacts of Agricultural Trade Liberalization," The Electronic Journal of Agricultural and Development Economics, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, vol. 3(1), pages 1-26.
    14. Badi H. Baltagi & Peter H. Egger & Michaela Kesina, 2016. "Firm‐Level Productivity Spillovers in China's Chemical Industry: A Spatial Hausman‐Taylor Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 214-248, January.
    15. Torben M. Andersen & Allan Sørensen, 2012. "Globalization, Tax Distortions, and Public‐Sector Retrenchment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(2), pages 409-439, June.
    16. Itakura, Ken & Hertel, Thomas & Jeff Reimer, 2003. "The Contribution of Productivity Linkages to the General Equilibrium Analysis of Free Trade Agreements," GTAP Working Papers 1193, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University.
    17. Torben M. Andersen & Allan Sørensen, 2013. "Product market integration, tax distortions and public sector size," Economics Working Papers 2013-28, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    18. Torben Andersen & Allan Sørensen, 2007. "Product Market Integration and Income Taxation: Distortions and Gains from Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 2170, CESifo.
    19. Andersen, Torben M. & Sørensen, Allan, 2007. "Product Market Integration and Labour Markets: Aggregate Gains at the Cost of More Inequality?," IZA Discussion Papers 2556, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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