This paper has two aims. First, we uncover some salient components of fixed export costs, which play a crucial role in recent heterogeneous firms models of international trade. Second, we investigate whether the importance of these fixed export costs varies with the size of a firm’s...

Even though the Netherlands was the world’s sixth largest exporter in 2009, the majority of Dutch firms does not engage in international trade at all, possibly because they are unable to cover the costs to enter specific foreign markets. What are these costs that limited the...

This paper utilizes new Dutch transaction-level data on international trade to investigate the microeconomic patterns of Dutch exports. First, we show that self-selection based on ex-ante productivity drives firms' export decisions, which we subsequently relate to various sources of fixed...

This document focuses on innovation, human capital, technology transfers and competition as potential sources of productivity growth for firms. It integrates the views of existing literature such as the two faces of R&D, the convergence debate and the existence of firm-level heterogeneity in...

This book analyzes growth at the total economy and industry level from an international perspective, providing unique cross-country comparisons. The authors focus on the EU-25 countries but also include the US, Japan and Korea. The chapters explore growth patterns from a long-run perspective,...