期刊名称：DIW Diskussionspapiere / Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin
出版年度：2009
卷号：2009
出版社：Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin
摘要：The determinants of export behaviour at firm level have been widely investigated
for manufacturing companies. By contrast, what has remained largely neglected is
a detailed investigation in the service sector. As aggregate statistics show,
international trade in services has grown significantly over the last few years.
However, it is unclear why some companies export and others do not. This paper
presents some initial results about the German business services sector at firm
level. Using a unique panel dataset of enterprises from the business services
sector (transport, storage and communication, real estate, renting and business
activities) for the years 2003 to 2005, we analysed the impact of several
firm-specific characteristics such as size, productivity, human capital,
experience on the national market in Germany, etc. on the firms' export
performance. Further, we used the pooled fractional probit estimator, recently
introduced by Papke & Wooldridge, an approach that considers both the
special nature of the export intensity variable and in addition unobserved
time-invariant characteristics. When there is no control for fixed enterprise
effects the overall results are in line with previous studies. When there is a
control for unobserved heterogeneity, the positive effects of productivity and
human capital disappear, indicating that these variables are not per se
positively related to export performance, but rather to time-constant
characteristics that are unobserved. Size and product diversification still have
a positive and significant effect.
