This paper documents for the first time the relationship between profitability and three typesof international trade activities – exports, imports and two-way trade. It uses unique newrepresentative data for manufacturing enterprises from Germany, one of the leading actorson the world market...

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

This study reports results from an empirical investigation of business services sector firmsthat (start to) export, comparing exporters to firms that serve the national market only. Weestimate identically specified empirical models using comparable enterprise level data fromFrance, Germany, and...

An emerging literature on international activities of heterogeneous firms documents thatexporting firms are more productive than firms that only sell on the national market. Thispositive exporter productivity premium shows up in a large number of empirical studies aftercontrolling for observed...