Exports and Firm Characteristics inGerman Manufacturing Industries

Reliable information on the characteristics of exporting and non-exporting firms is importantto guide theorists and policy makers in an evidence based way. This holds true especially forGermany, a leading actor on the world markets for goods and services. This paper makesthree contributions towards this aim: (1) It provides a synopsis and a critical assessment of51 empirical studies on exports and firm characteristics that use data for Germanestablishments or enterprises, arguing that this literature is not suited to extract the stylizedfacts needed. (2) It uses recently released rich high quality data for a large representativepanel of enterprises from German manufacturing industries to investigate the links betweenfirm characteristics and export activities, demonstrating the decisive role of human capitalintensity for exporting. (3) It links these findings to the recent literature from the new newtrade theory on international activities of heterogeneous firms that emphasises the role ofproductivity for exporting. It shows that productivity is important for exporting as ishypothesized in the formal theoretical models, but that contrary to the assumption made inthese models productivity is not (only) the result from a random draw from the productivitydistribution – it is strongly positively related to human capital intensity....