[size=0.9em]Learning by exporting and the presence of foreign-affiliated companies
[size=0.9em]Kaoru Hosono, Daisuke Miyakawa, Miho Takizawa 27 August 2015
[size=0.9em]原文链接:http://www.voxeu.org/article/lea ... firm-level-evidence
[size=0.9em]‘Learning by exporting’ refers to productivity gains experienced by firms after they commence exporting. Such gains are argued to be due to access to new knowledge and resources. This column explores some of the preconditions for learning-by-exporting effects, using data on the overseas activities and affiliations of Japanese firms. Firms that enter markets in which they don’t have affiliates or subsidiaries are found to enjoy the most learning-by-exporting productivity gains. These findings have implications for the timing of new market entry.
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A number of studies have pointed out that firms that start exporting exhibit better performance (prior to commencing exports) than non-exporter firms (Bernard and Jensen 1999). Such a causal effect running from the level of firms’ pre-exporting performance to export status, however, is not the whole picture of the relationship.
Exporter firms may be able to achieve better performance after starting exports by, for example, incorporating destination countries’ local demand into their products, utilising better resources endowed in destination countries, and/or self-training firms’ internal operations.
This additional causal linkage running from firms’ export status to post-export performance is called ‘learning by exporting’. A vast amount of literature has been testing the empirical implication of the learning-by-exporting story. A prominent paper by De Loecker (2007) reports the existence of such an effect. Following this study, a handful of literature including Manjon et al. (2013) and De Loecker (2013) report refined results based on more precisely modelled export dynamics and productivity measures. Using Japanese firm-level data, Kimura and Kiyota (2006) also report that exporter firms experienced higher productivity growth.1
Although the theoretical illustration of learning by exporting is relatively straightforward, empirical evidence in the extant literature still has been mixed. While the aforementioned studies largely support the existence of the learning-by-exporting mechanism, Keller (2004) and Wagner (2007) provide counter-evidence against such a mechanism. One resolution for these conflicted results is provided by several recent studies, including Yashiro and Hirano (2009), Damijan et al. (2010), Ito and Lechevalier (2010), and Ito (2011). These papers mainly aim at identifying the conditions under which learning by exporting can be clearly observed and find that pre-exporting research and development (R&D) intensity, firm size, and characteristics of export destinations matter for the effectiveness of the learning-by-exporting mechanism. Thus, an important empirical and policy question on this topic is what enables firms to exploit the benefits of exporting in terms of firm performance.
New evidenceAgainst this background, we shed light on new firm-level characteristics – that is, the overseas activities of exporter firms’ affiliated companies (Hosono et al 2015). More precisely, we investigate the causal effect running from starting exports to firms’ various performance by using Japanese firm-level data, specifically taking into account as an important firm-level characteristic whether exporter firms’ affiliated firms (e.g. own subsidiaries and parent companies’ branches) already locate abroad.
We can expect that the performance gains from exporting can be observed more clearly in the case where affiliated firms are not present abroad – especially in the market to which the firm starts exports – than in the case where they are, for a number of reasons. First, in the latter case, the firm may have already gained knowledge about the local customers and regulations, among others, through the overseas affiliated firms. Second, firms may export to parent firms’ overseas subsidiaries and hence have little chance to learn the local markets on their own. Finally, contrary to these two reasons, if the affiliated firms give the exporting firm detailed information on the local markets, their presence may accelerate the firm’s learning by exporting. In the case where the exporter firm has no affiliated firms abroad, contrary to the preceding points, we may be able to pick up a pure learning effect from the first access to foreign markets. The purpose of our study is to empirically analyse this conjecture by using a unique firm-level panel dataset that allows us to identify firms that start exports, and firms that stay in domestic markets as well as their affiliated companies’ overseas activities.
We rely on two firm-level data sources. First, information on firms’ export status and their financial characteristics are obtained from the Basic Survey of Japanese Business Structure and Activities (BSJBSA) compiled by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The main purpose of this survey is to gauge quantitatively the activities of Japanese enterprises, including capital investment, exports, foreign direct investment, and investment in R&D. To this end, the survey covers the universe of enterprises in Japan with more than 50 employees and with paid-up capital of over 30 million yen. To investigate the differential learning-by-exporting effects between the firms whose parent firms have overseas branches and those that do not, we rely on the BSJBSA. Second, to differentiate the firms that have subsidiaries in export markets (and other foreign markets) from those that do not, we use the information on firms’ own overseas subsidiaries provided by the Survey of Overseas Business Activities (SOBA), another governmental survey research compiled by METI. Using the SOBA, we can identify whether firms own subsidiaries abroad as well as in which areas they are located.
We employ propensity-score matching differences-in-differences (DID) estimation so that we can specifically examine the causal impact of starting exports on firm performance, after properly controlling for pre-export firm heterogeneity. The dataset we use allows us to identify whether or not subsidiaries of exporter firms locate abroad, as well as whether or not the parent companies and/or subsidiaries of exporter firms have their own branches abroad. We can also measure the total amounts of exports to affiliated firms. By using such detailed information about the overseas activities of affiliated firms and trade relationships between exporter firms and their affiliated firms, we can study how affiliated firms’ presence in foreign markets influences their post-export performance.
Our findings can be summarised as follows. First, as reported in a number of extant studies, firms starting exports showed better performance than their non-exporter counterparts prior to export. Specifically, they showed higher productivity as measured by total factor productivity (TFP), larger size as measured by the number of employees, higher wages potentially representing higher skills, and higher liquidity measured by the ratio of liquid assets to total assets. These results are consistent with the widely reported features of exporter firms in the literature.
Second, the differences in TFP and labour productivity between exporter firms and firms that stay domestic show significant widening after exports commence. In the case of TFP, the difference widened by 1.3% upon starting exports and continued to increase to 3.1% over the next six years. In the case of labour productivity, the difference widened by 3.2% and then increased to around 8.3%.
Third, and most importantly, such an improvement in firm performance was both statistically and economically significant for exporter firms without parent firms’ overseas branches or their own overseas subsidiaries (case 1). On the other hand, the performance gain from exports was not statistically significant for exporter firms with both parent firms’ overseas branches and their own overseas subsidiaries (case 2).