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Exports, Foreign Direct Investments and Productivity: Are Services Firms Different?
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Exports, Foreign Direct Investments and Productivity: Are Services Firms Different?

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  • Wagner, Joachim

    (Leuphana University Lüneburg)

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on international firm activities and firm performance by providing the first evidence on the link of productivity and both exports and foreign direct investment (fdi) in services firms from a highly developed country. It uses unique new data from Germany - one of the leading actors on the world market for services - that merge information from regular surveys and from a one-time special purpose survey performed by the Statistical Offices. Descriptive statistics, parametric and non-parametric statistical tests and regression analyses (with and without explicitly taking differences along the conditional productivity distribution and firms with extreme values, or outliers, into account) indicate that the productivity pecking order found in numerous studies using data for firms from manufacturing industries – where the firms with the highest productivity engage in fdi while the least productive firms serve the home market only and the productivity of exporting firms is in between – does not exist among firms from services industries. In line with the theoretical model and the empirical results for software firms from India provided by Bhattacharya, Patnaik and Shah (2010) there is evidence that firms with fdi are less productive than firms that export.

Suggested Citation

  • Wagner, Joachim, 2011. "Exports, Foreign Direct Investments and Productivity: Are Services Firms Different?," IZA Discussion Papers 6009, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6009
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    Cited by:

    1. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2015. "Service Trade and Productivity: Firm-level evidence from Japan," Discussion papers 15030, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    2. Sleuwaegen, Leo & Smith, Peter M., 2021. "Service characteristics and the choice between exports and FDI: Evidence from Belgian firms," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 115-131.
    3. Seymur Ağazade, 2021. "Service Exports and Productivity: Evidence from OECD Panel Data," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2021(3), pages 298-321.
    4. Arvanitis, Spyros & Hollenstein, Heinz & Stucki, Tobias, 2016. "Does the explanatory power of the OLI approach differ among sectors and business functions? Evidence from firm-level data," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 10, pages 1-46.
    5. Apoorva Gupta & Ila Patnaik & Ajay Shah, 2018. "Exporting and firm performance: evidence from India," Indian Growth and Development Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(1), pages 83-104, December.
    6. Neil Foster-McGregor & Anders Isaksson & Florian Kaulich, 2014. "Outward Foreign Direct Investment, Exporting and Firm-Level Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(2), pages 244-257, February.
    7. Łukasz Matuszczak, 2019. "What are the determinants of international trade in services? Evidence from firm-level data for Poland," Working Papers 2019-20, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    exports; productivity; services firms; foreign direct investments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements

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