In this paper we analyse the impact of governmental grant provision on plant performance. To this end we utilise rich information derived from three data sources for the manufacturing sector in Ireland, where grant provision has been an important part of the industrial policy. We use a matching...

China's policy of encouraging export processing has been the topic of much discussion in the academic literature and policy debate. We use a recently developed econometric approach that allows for time varying "treatments" and estimate economically and statistically significant positive causal...

Exporting involves sunk costs, so some firms export while others do not. This proposition derives from a number of models of firm behaviour and has been exposed to microeconometric analysis. Evidence from the latter suggests that exporting firms are generally more productive than non-exporters;...