Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/92976 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Bonn Econ Discussion Papers No. 06/2013
Publisher: 
University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE), Bonn
Abstract: 
I present a dynamic fixed cost model of export participation extended by a capital theoretic concept of the customer stock. Plants that want to start exporting have to invest into a market specific factor which serves as input into a decreasing returns to scale technology generating sales demand. Customer capital, like phyical capital, depreciates over time and its accumulation is subject to adjustment costs. It allows the model to reproduce the empirical fact that new exporters show above average revenue growth rates and a declining exit hazard in the years after entry. I structurally estimate the model on a rich panel data set of German manufacturing plants between 1995 and 2008. During the observed time span, plants in the sample saw a strong increase in export activity which provides a suitable case study for the predictive power of the model. Unlike a pure fixed cost version, the model correctly forecasts a steep rise in exports after 2003. It is also able to reconcile a strong export reaction to trade liberalizations with a low elasticity of aggregate exports to exchange rate movements. Customer capital accumulation therefore offers a potential resolution to the elasticity puzzle in international economics.
Subjects: 
customers as capital
firm entry
firm heterogeneity
export dynamics
sunk costs
international business cycles
JEL: 
E32
F14
F17
F40
F41
F44
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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