Explaining Export Performance in the Spanish Defense Industry

This paper presents empirical results on the export performance of Spanish defense contractors. The objective is threefold. First, we briefly describe the export profile of the Spanish defense industry at the firm level. Second, in light of some results on the determinants of firm-level export intensity, we empirically test some of these variables for the case of defense-related exports. We find that exporters tend to be capital intensive, diversified, and showing high R&D effort. In the analysis by sectors, learning by exporting is the most frequent result. Third, we assess the exporter productivity premium, regressing productivity on exporter status and firm size. Our results indicate that when controlling for firm heterogeneity, no such premium exists.