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The impact of exporting on firm productivity: a meta-analysis of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis

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Abstract

We conduct a meta-analysis of more than 30 papers that study the causal relationship between exporting and firm productivity. Our main result, robust to different specifications and to different weights for each observation, indicates that the impact of exporting upon productivity is higher for developing than developed economies. We also find that the export effect tends to be higher (1) in the first year that firms start exporting (compared to later years); and (2) when the sample used in the paper is not restricted to matched firms. Moreover, we find no evidence of publication bias.

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Notes

  1. See also the meta-analysis results presented in ISGEP (The International Study Group on Exports and Productivity) (2007).

  2. There is a small number of studies that do implement analysis as those of Eq. 1 but are not considered in our paper because they do not make available enough information about the data and methods used.

  3. CEMPRE (Centre for Macroeconomic and Forecasting Studies) and NIPE (Economic Policies Research Unit) (2006).

  4. Moreover, studies with more observations tend to lead to smaller effects; and there is some evidence that more recent studies lead to bigger effects, although in only one case the coefficient is significant.

  5. This is achieved by including a dummy variable that takes value one only if the estimate is based on plant-level data. We found that 43% of the 275 estimates are based on such data.

  6. We have also conducted this robustness analysis separately—i.e. including only the significant estimates or including only the plant-level dummy variable and the quantitative and qualitative results are generally unchanged.

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Acknowledgments

We thank, without implicating, Dick Allard, Simon Mohun, Pietro Panzarasa, Martha Prevezer, Teresa da Silva Lopes, one referee, the managing editor (Harmen Lehment) and workshop participants at Queen Mary, University of London, for their insightful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK

    Pedro S. Martins & Yong Yang

  2. CEG-IST, Lisbon, Portugal

    Pedro S. Martins

  3. IZA, Bonn, Germany

    Pedro S. Martins

  4. Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

    Yong Yang

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  1. Pedro S. Martins
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Correspondence to Pedro S. Martins.

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Martins, P.S., Yang, Y. The impact of exporting on firm productivity: a meta-analysis of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. Rev World Econ 145, 431–445 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10290-009-0021-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10290-009-0021-6

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