Factor Intensity, product switching, and productivity: Evidence from Chinese exporters

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ma, Yue; Tang, Heiwai; Zhang, Yifan
• 署名单位: City University of Hong Kong; Johns Hopkins University; Lingnan University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2013.11.003
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 349-362
• 关键词: Exporters; PRODUCTIVITY; Factor intensity; Multi-product firms

摘要

This paper analyzes how a firm's specialization in its core products after exporting affects its factor intensity and productivity. Using Chinese manufacturing firm data for the 1998-2007 period, we find that firms become less capital-intensive but more productive after exporting, compared to non-exporters that share similar ex ante characteristics. To rationalize these findings that contrast with existing studies, we develop a variant of the model by Bernard, Redding, and Schott (2010, 2011) to consider firms producing multiple products with varying capital intensity. The model predicts that when a firm in a labor-abundant country starts exporting, it specializes in its core competencies by allocating more resources to produce more labor-intensive products. Firm ex ante productivity is associated with a smaller decline in capital intensity after exporting. A sharper post-export decline in capital intensity is associated with a larger increase in measured total factor productivity. We find firm-level evidence supporting these predictions. Using transaction-level data for the 2000-2006 period, we show that Chinese new exporters add products that are less capital-intensive than their existing products and drop those that are more capital-intensive in subsequent years. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.