Exports and Firm Characteristics in German Manufacturing Industries: New Evidence from Representative Panel Data

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksChapterpeer-review

Authors

Germany is one of the leading actors in the world market for manufactured goods but not every firm from a manufacturing industry in Germany is an exporter. In 2006, the share of exporters in all enterprises was 69 percent in West Germany and 52 percent in East Germany. Reliable information on the characteristics of exporting and non-exporting firms is important to guide theorists and policy makers in an evidence-based way. This chapter uses recently released rich high quality data for a large representative panel of enterprises from German manufacturing industries to investigate the links between firm-characteristics and export activities, demonstrating the decisive role of human capital intensity for exporting. It links these findings to the recent literature from the new new trade theory on international activities of heterogeneous firms that emphasizes the role of productivity for exporting. It shows that productivity is important for exporting as is hypothesized in the formal theoretical models, but that contrary to the assumption made in these models productivity is not (only) the result from a random draw from the productivity distribution - it is strongly positively related to human capital intensity.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMicroeconometrics of International Trade
EditorsJoachim Wagner
Number of pages47
PublisherWorld Scientific Publishing Co.
Publication date21.06.2016
Pages91-137
ISBN (print)9789813109681
ISBN (electronic)9789813109698
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21.06.2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

    Research areas

  • Exports, firm characteristics, Germany