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The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 92 No. 4 2010

Exporting and Firm Performance: Chinese Exporters and the Asian Financial Crisis

Albert Park1; Dean Yang2; Xinzheng Shi3; Yuan Jiang4

1 University of Oxford · 2 National Bureau of Economic Research · 3 Tsinghua University · 4 National Bureau of Statistics of China

Abstract

We ask how export demand shocks associated with the Asian financial crisis affected Chinese exporters. We construct firm-specific exchange rate shocks based on the precrisis destinations of firms' exports. Because the shocks were unanticipated and large, they are a plausible instrument for identifying the impact of exporting on firm productivity and other outcomes. We find that firms whose export destinations experience greater currency depreciation have slower export growth and that export growth leads to increases in firm productivity and other firm performance measures. Consistent with “learning-by-exporting,” the productivity impact of export growth is greater when firms export to more developed countries.

DOI
10.1162/rest_a_00033
Volume
92
Issue
4
Pages
822-842
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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