Learning-by-Exporting or Managerial Quality? Evidence from the Czech Republic

This paper employs firm-level panel data from the Czech Republic to investigate the empirical relevance of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. To provide convincing estimates, one must be able to disentangle learning-by-exporting from changes in company management that induce the company to both start exporting and introduce productivity increasing measures. Therefore, I compare estimates based on matching on propensity score, which do not control for potential management changes, to estimates based on an instrumental variables strategy. Specifically, I focus on firms that start exporting due to changes in the industry-specific exchange rate and industry-specific ratio of producer prices on domestic and foreign markets. The results suggest that learning-by-exporting in the Czech Republic is not significant, either statistically or economically, irrespective of the method used