One of the main purposes of our studies of U.S.-based multinational firms has been to examine the relationship between direct investment by U.S. firms and the export trade of the United States, a subject of bitter controversy for at least the last fifteen years. Changes over time in trade flows...

The fact that large manufacturing plants export relatively more than small plants has been at the foundation of much work in the international trade literature. We examine this fact using Census micro data on plant shipments from the Commodity Flow Survey. We show the fact is not entirely an...

A positive correlation between productivity and export market participation has been well documented in producer micro data. Recent empirical studies and theoretical analyses have emphasized that this may reflect the producer's other investment activities, particularly investments in R&D or new...

This study examines the relationship between exporting and various performance measures including total factor productivity, using the annual plant-level panel data on Korean manufacturing sector during the period of 1990 to 1998. The two key questions examined are whether exporting improves...

Proponents of trade liberalization argue that it will force firms to produce closer to the production possibility frontier and that the frontier will move out faster. In particular, plants that export will achieve a higher productivity level. However intuitive the argument, empirical evidence is...

This paper uses new firm level data from five East Asian countries to explore the patterns of manufacturing productivity across the region. One of the striking patterns that emerges is how the extent of openness and the competitiveness of markets affects the relative productivity of firms across...