Does Exporting Raise Productivity? Evidence from Korean Microdata

This paper explores a plausible channel through which exporting could have made both a substantial and a persistent contribution to export-oriented economic growth in Korea and by extension other East Asian NIEs: namely, the spillovers (or externalities) of learning-by-exporting. Plant-level data for Korean manufacturing show that more export-intensive industries tend to have a higher productivity level. In addition, a substantial part of the variance in plant-level productivity is explained by the variance in industry-level export intensity. [ADB Institute Research Paper Series No. 67]