This paper documents for the first time the relationship between profitability and three types of international trade activities – exports, imports and two-way trade. It uses unique new representative data for manufacturing enterprises from Germany, one of the leading actors on the world...

A large and growing number of micro-econometric studies show that exporting firms are more productive than firms that sell their products on the home market only. This so-called exporter productivity premium qualifies as a stylized fact. Only recently researchers started to look at the role of...

This paper documents the relationship between firm survival and three types of international trade activities – exports, imports and two-way trade. It uses unique new representative data for manufacturing enterprises from Germany, one of the leading actors on the world market for goods, that...

This paper is a non-technical introduction to the use of three micro-econometric tools that have only recently been applied in empirical investigations of the links between international firm activities and firm performance. It shows why it is important to use these methods, how to use them in...

Empirical investigations with enterprise level data from official statistics often use the average wage as a proxy variable for the qualification of the workforce, mostly due to the lack of detailed information on the qualification of the employees. This paper uses unique newly available data...

This paper contributes to the literature on international firm activities and firm performance by providing the first evidence on the link of productivity and both exports and foreign direct investment (fdi) in services firms from a highly developed country. It uses unique new data from Germany...

Reliable information on the characteristics of exporting and non-exporting firms is important to guide theorists and policy makers in an evidence based way. This holds true especially for Germany, a leading actor on the world markets for goods and services. This paper makes three contributions...

A stylized fact from the literature on the Micro-econometrics of International Trade and a central implication of the heterogeneous firm models from the New New Trade Theory is that exporters are more productive than non-exporters. It is argued that this exporter productivity premium is due to...

This paper makes three contributions. (1) It summarizes in tabular form a recent literature made of 36 micro-econometric studies for 16 different countries on the relationship between export destination and firm performance. (2) It reports estimates of the productivity premium of German firms...

This paper contributes to the literature by documenting for the first time the contribution of adding (and dropping) goods and destination countries to the sharp increase in exports of goods in the German economy as a whole during the Great Export Recovery in 2009/2010. The empirical...