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Is Exporting a Source of Productivity Spillovers?
Roberto Alvarez and Ricardo A. Lpez
Central Bank of Chile and INTELIS, University of Chile; Indiana University, Bloomington
Abstract: This paper investigates whether exporting generates positive productivity spillover effects on other plants in the same industry and on plants in vertically related industries. Using data for Chilean manufacturing plants from 1990 to 1999, we nd strong evidence that domestic as well as foreign-owned exporting plants improve productivity of local suppliers. We also nd some evidence of horizontal spillovers from exporting but these are mainly generated by plants with foreign ownership. These results suggest that positive productivity spillovers are not only generated by the presence of foreign-owned exporting plants but also by exporting activity of domestic rms. The results are robust to controls for agglomeration of economic activity, the importance of non-exporting foreign-owned plants, and plant unobserved heterogeneity. JEL no. F10, F23, O3, O54Keywords: Exporting; spillovers; productivity; vertical linkages; Chile
1 Introduction
Over the last decade there has been a growing interest in examining the relationship between exports and productivity using rm level data. Evidence for several countries shows that exporters are more productive than non-exporters and that the existence of trade costs may explain why only high-productivity rms export (Roberts and Tybout 1997; Bernard and Jensen 2004b). Some other studies examine the existence of spillovers or externalities from exporting. These studies focus on whether general exporting activity affects the probability of exporting and export performance
Remark: The authors would like to thank Hadi Salehi Esfahani, Gerhard Glomm, Holger Grg, Kim Huynh, Beata S. Javorcik, Hankook Kim, Renata Kosova, Volodymyr Lugovskyy, Mahmut Yasar, an anonymous referee, and seminar participants at Illinois, Indiana, Memphis, the Midwest International Economics Meeting at Kansas, the International Industrial Organization conference at Northeastern University, the European Trade Study Group Conference at the University of Vienna and the Empirical International Trade Conference at Wilfrid Laurier University for very helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank Jean Morrison for proofreading and editing the manuscript. Please send correspondence to Ricardo A. Lpez, Department of Economics, Indiana University, Wylie Hall Room 105, Bloomington, IN 47405, U.S.A.; e-mail: [email protected]
2008 Kiel Institute DOI: 10.1007/s10290-008-0167-7
724 Review of World Economics 2008, Vol. 144 (4)
(Aitken et al. 1997; Clerides et al....