From estimation results to stylized facts: Twelve recommendations for empirical research in international activities of heterogeneous firms
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Lüneburg: Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Lüneburg, 2010. (Working paper series in economics; No. 186).
Research output: Working paper › Working papers
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TY - UNPB
T1 - From estimation results to stylized facts
T2 - Twelve recommendations for empirical research in international activities of heterogeneous firms
AU - Wagner, Joachim
N1 - Literaturverz. S. 41 - 50
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Heterogeneous firms are at the heart of both the New New International Trade Theory and the Micro-econometrics of International Firm Activities. One important aim of microeconometric studies is to uncover stylized facts that hold over space and time, and that can both inspire theoretical models that are based on “realistic” assumptions, and inform policy debates in an evidence-based way. Which results from the thousands of empirical estimates reported in the literature on the micro-econometrics of international firm activities do weconsider as convincing? Based on my own experience from the last twenty years I use the opportunity of this lecture to make twelve recommendations that, hopefully, will help to find the right way on the thorny road from estimation results to stylized facts. I will deal with the following topics: comparisons of means vs. comparisons of distributions; extremely different firms, or outliers; unobserved heterogeneity; simultaneous occurrence of differences acrossquantiles, outliers, and unobserved heterogeneity; heterogeneous effects of international firm activities on firm performance; replication; within-study replication by international research teams; meta-analysis; and talking to practitioners.
AB - Heterogeneous firms are at the heart of both the New New International Trade Theory and the Micro-econometrics of International Firm Activities. One important aim of microeconometric studies is to uncover stylized facts that hold over space and time, and that can both inspire theoretical models that are based on “realistic” assumptions, and inform policy debates in an evidence-based way. Which results from the thousands of empirical estimates reported in the literature on the micro-econometrics of international firm activities do weconsider as convincing? Based on my own experience from the last twenty years I use the opportunity of this lecture to make twelve recommendations that, hopefully, will help to find the right way on the thorny road from estimation results to stylized facts. I will deal with the following topics: comparisons of means vs. comparisons of distributions; extremely different firms, or outliers; unobserved heterogeneity; simultaneous occurrence of differences acrossquantiles, outliers, and unobserved heterogeneity; heterogeneous effects of international firm activities on firm performance; replication; within-study replication by international research teams; meta-analysis; and talking to practitioners.
KW - Economics
KW - international firm activities
KW - heterogeneous firms
KW - stylized facts
KW - robust statistics
KW - replication
KW - meta analysis
M3 - Working papers
T3 - Working paper series in economics
BT - From estimation results to stylized facts
PB - Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Lüneburg
CY - Lüneburg
ER -