Tariff rates, offshoring and productivity : evidence from German and Austrian firm-level data

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization in terms of tarif cuts within the Eastern European enlargement on German and Austrian firm productivity. Unique matching of data from 1994 to 2003 suggests that tarif reductions raise parent firm productivity significantly. A ten percentage point decrease in tarif rates can lead to total factor productivity gains of up to 2 percent. The data allow distinction between three types of tarifs: output, intra-firm and input tarif rates. The size of the results strongly depends on the type of tarif and country analyzed.