A positive correlation between productivity and export market participation has been well documented in producer micro data. Recent empirical studies and theoretical analyses have emphasized that this may reflect the producer's other investment activities, particularly investments in R&D or new...

Industry cost and demand conditions can vary across countries leading to differences in industry market structure, including the distribution of output and productivity across firms and the magnitude of entry and exit flows. It has been argued that despite many outward similarities, two of the...

The manufacturing sector in Taiwan has a market structure composed of large numbers of small firms, a focus on less capital-intensive industries, and a dense network of firms specializing in subcontracting and trading services. It has been argued that these features lower the start-up costs of...

While there is widespread empirical evidence indicating exporting producers have higher productivity than nonexporters, the mechanisms that generate this pattern are less clear. One view is that exporters acquire knowledge of new production methods, inputs, and product designs from their...

This paper estimates a dynamic structural model of a producer's decision to invest in R&D and export, allowing both choices to endogenously affect the future path of productivity. Using plant-level data for the Taiwanese electronics industry, both activities are found to have a positive effect...

Why are higher quality niches seen as intrinsically more profitable in business circles? Why do high quality products sometimes have a low real price, while it is unusual to see low quality products with high real prices? Can markets have quality differentiation as well as quality bunching? In...