Unlike most studies that calculate productivity as a residual, this study uses detailed plant-level data to examine the relationship between exposure to foreign markets and specific innovations including product design, investment in new tools (such as computers), research and development, and...

Recent empirical evidence documents the superior characteristics of exporters relative to non-exporters. Three explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed: self-selection; learning-by-exporting; and conscious self-selection. We test these three hypotheses using plant-level data from...

Chile has supported its agriculture with the use of price bands on selected commodities namely wheat, vegetable oils and fats, and sugar. In this paper we consider agricultural reform and how urban unemployment, and rural-urban migration, may alter the expected welfare effects of agricultural...

Several studies examine the patterns and determinants of entry and exit in manufacturing industries. Not much work exists on entry and exit in international markets. This paper uses Chilean data to analyze the industry-level determinants of entry and exit in export markets. First, we show as...

The Chilean economy underwent a deep structural change in the mid-seventies, through several economic reforms. Among these, the most impressive one was trade liberalization. This process caused a string of bankruptcies in the manufacturing industry and a reduction in the share of this sector in...

Recent models of trade with firm heterogeneity predict that opening to trade reduces the number of firms, increases the average size of firms, and decreases firms’ markups. This paper uses a large dataset for 28 manufacturing industries and 46 countries to test these predictions. The...

This paper investigates whether exporting generates positive productivity spillover effects on other plants operating in the same industry and whether exporting affects productivity of plants in vertically related industries. Using plant-level data from Chile we find that exporters improve...