Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth: Firm-Level Evidence from Cameroon

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ousmanou Njikam ◽  
John Cockburn
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-460
Author(s):  
Stephen Esaku ◽  
Waldo Krugell

We analyze the impact of trade liberalization on firm productivity growth in Kenya’s manufacturing sector, using a panel spanning 8 years; 1992-1999. Our analysis reveals that liberalizing trade generates high productivity improvements in the manufacturing sector. We find that a one-unit reduction in import duties as a percentage of total imports significantly increases firm-level productivity in the manufacturing sector by 5.7%. When we examine this effect on the firm’s share of exported output, we find that lowering of import duties significantly increases the share of output exported by 0.7%. Further, we sought to assess how the effect of import duties varied across the different industries in our sample. Examining the effect of import duties on industrial performance, we find a negative and statistically significant relationship in some of the industries. Our results show heterogeneous effect of reduction of import duties on industrial performance. Not all industries benefited from the lowering of import duties, especially the food and bakery, and garment industry, where productivity did not increase. These findings have important policy implications for improving the manufacturing sector. Consequently, formulating policies that effectively relax restrictive barriers to trade in the economy could speed up firm-level productivity in the manufacturing sector.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
YUE WEN

Unlike previous studies that focus on the change of firm-level markup, this study focuses on the change of industry-level aggregate markup. From the data of China’s manufacturing firms in 1999–2007, this study exploits the dynamic change of aggregate markup by using the decomposition method which is proposed by Melitz and Polanec (2015). The result shows that China’s manufacturing aggregate markup has an upward trend during the sample period, which mainly comes from the contribution of surviving firms. On the contrary, the contribution of entering and exiting firms to the aggregate markup is negative. Further analysis shows that trade liberalization is one of the reasons to promote the increase of China’s manufacturing aggregate markup. This study provides a new perspective for understanding the dynamic change of the aggregate markup.


2018 ◽  
Vol 108 (11) ◽  
pp. 3450-3491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu ◽  
Ufuk Akcigit ◽  
Harun Alp ◽  
Nicholas Bloom ◽  
William Kerr

We build a model of firm-level innovation, productivity growth, and reallocation featuring endogenous entry and exit. A new and central economic force is the selection between high- and low-type firms, which differ in terms of their innovative capacity. We estimate the parameters of the model using US Census microdata on firm-level output, R&D, and patenting. The model provides a good fit to the dynamics of firm entry and exit, output, and R&D. Taxing the continued operation of incumbents can lead to sizable gains (of the order of 1.4 percent improvement in welfare) by encouraging exit of less productive firms and freeing up skilled labor to be used for R&D by high-type incumbents. Subsidies to the R&D of incumbents do not achieve this objective because they encourage the survival and expansion of low-type firms. (JEL D21, D24, H25, L52, O31, O34)


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (03n04) ◽  
pp. 467-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lionel Bopage ◽  
Kishor Sharma

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about the effects of trade liberalization on productivity performance of the Australian passenger motor vehicle industry, which has experienced significant liberalization over the years. Our analysis indicates that trade liberalization had a negative impact on productivity growth, at least in the immediate post-liberalization period. Empirical results suggest that economies of scale and tariff protection improve productivity, while industry assistance (such as the local content and duty drawback schemes and production subsidies) retards productivity. Policy implications of these findings are that there are dividends in terms of improved productivity by encouraging economies of scale, providing tariff protection and lowering industry assistance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Mukherjee

The article studies the impact of outsourcing services on the productivity growth of the Indian manufacturing firms. By the term services we mean different expenses on services incurred by the manufacturing firms, such as, advertising, marketing, research and development, consultancy, auditing, business services, knowledge-based services, technical, legal and other professional services (including information communication and technology services). With further expansion in newer services, a higher demand has come from the Indian manufacturing sector. With intensive usage of services in the manufacturing production process, the performance and the manufacturing can focus on the core competencies with outsourced and cheaper services from expert service provider. For this purpose, the firm-level data have been collected from the annual financial statements of the Centre for Monitoring of the Indian Economy’s Prowess database. The econometric results conclude that services have played a positive role in improving the productivity growth of the aggregate Indian manufacturing firms and at the disaggregated level, especially for industrial groups such as food, beverage and tobacco; textiles, gems and jewellery; transport; machinery; metal, rubber and plastic; leather and footwear; and chemicals, services have played a favourable role in boosting the productivity growth. JEL: D24, L80, L60


Author(s):  
Michael Landesmann ◽  
Neil Foster-McGregor

Trade and the integration of countries into the global economy is one of the main forces shaping the structural composition of economies, an effect which in turn is expected to impact upon productivity and growth. Structural change can be restrained or reinforced by international trade. This chapter reviews the theory on the relationship between trade and trade liberalization and both structural change and growth, from the contributions of Adam Smith to the more recent new new trade theory beginning with the work of Melitz. The chapter further discusses the existing empirical evidence on the relationship between trade and structural change, before concluding by presenting evidence on the impact of trade liberalization on productivity growth for a broad sample of countries, further decomposing the effect into an effect due to structural change and an effect due to within sector productivity developments.


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