Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/46189 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5147
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This study reports results from an empirical investigation of business services sector firms that (start to) export, comparing exporters to firms that serve the national market only. We estimate identically specified empirical models using comparable enterprise level data from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Exporters are more productive and pay higher wages on average in all three countries. Results for profitability differ across borders - profitability of exporters is significantly smaller in Germany, significantly larger in France, and does not differ significantly in the UK. The results for wages and productivity hold in the years before the export start, which indicates self-selection into exporting of more productive services firms that pay higher wages. The surprising finding of self-selection of less profitable German business services firms into exporting does not show up among firms from France and the UK where no statistically significant relationship between profitability and starting to export is found.
JEL: 
F14
D21
L80
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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