Does anti-competitive service sector regulation harm exporters? Evidence from manufacturing firms in Spain

In a panel study of firm-level data from Spanish manufacturers, we show that reducing anti-competitive regulation in the provision of upstream services has a positive and sizeable effect on the volume of exports of downstream firms. Our estimates indicate that deregulation is very beneficial for the export performance of large corporations, especially if they are foreign-owned multinationals, while the evidence for SMEs is much weaker. Hence, firm characteristics matter for the connection between regulation and exports. Simulation exercises suggest that large firms increased their volume of exports by an average of 49% as a result of deregulation, such that the industries that benefited the most were typically more dependent on service inputs. The improvements in the regulatory framework of transportation services and energy provision that took place over the 1990s and 2000s in Spain had particularly strong effects on the volume of foreign sales.