This paper investigates four cohorts of firms from German manufacturing industries that started to export in the years between 1998 and 2002 and follows them over the five years after the start. Export starters are a rare species and they are small on average compared to incumbent exporters....

Using quantile regression and a rich cross section data set for German manufacturing plants this paper documents that the impact of plant characteristics on export activities varies along the conditional size distribution of the export/sales ratio.

This paper presents the first empirical test with German establishment level data of a hypothesis derived by Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple in a model that explains the decision of heterogeneous firms to serve foreign markets either trough exports or foreign direct investment: only the more...

This paper uses a newly available comprehensive panel data set for manufacturing enterprises from 2001 to 2005 to document the first empirical results on the relationship between imports and productivity for Germany, a leading actor on the world market for goods. Furthermore, for the first time...

Using quantile regression and a rich cross section data set for German manufacturing plants this paper documents that the impact of plant characteristics on export activities varies along the conditional size distribution of the export/sales ratio.

This paper uses unique new data for German manufacturing enterprises from matched regular surveys and a special purpose survey to investigate the causal effect of relocation of activities to a foreign country on various dimensions of firm performance. Enterprises that relocated activities abroad...

This paper uses unique new data for German manufacturing enterprises from matched regular surveys and a special purpose survey to investigate the causal effect of relocation of activities to a foreign country on various dimensions of firm performance. Enterprises that relocated activities abroad...

Heterogeneous firms are at the heart of both the New New International Trade Theory and the Micro-econometrics of International Firm Activities. One important aim of microeconometric studies is to uncover stylized facts that hold over space and time, and that can both inspire theoretical models...

Dieser Aufsatz nutzt geheime Einzeldaten aus amtlichen Erhebungen in niedersächsischen Industriebetrieben, um einen Blick hinter die Kulissen des Exportbooms zu werfen. Hierbei zeigt sich eine ausgeprägte Heterogenität der Exportdynamik zwischen Betrieben innerhalb einer Hauptgruppe,...

This paper uses a large plant level panel data set from Germany and a matching approach to look for causal effects of starting to export on plant performance. We find positive effects on growth of employment, labor productivity, and wages. Dieses Diskussionspapier untersucht, welche Effekte der...