The question of learning versus self-selection has dominated the micro-econometric literature on firm export decisions without leading to any firm conclusions. In part this reflects the limited information content of the data typically used. In this paper we use survey data on UK firms to offer...

We provide the first firm-level evidence of the impact of the trade in producer services (`offshoring') on the labour market. Using a new data set from the UK that measures trade in services at the firm level, we find no evidence that importing intermediate services is associated with job losses...

The recent microeconomic literature on international trade has highlighted the importance of firm characteristics and trade costs for exports. This study provides evidence on one type of those costs, the costs of doing business overseas, from a theoretical and empirical perspective. Controlling...

Our paper investigates the link between international outsourcing and wages utilizing a large household panel and combining it with industry-level information on industries' outsourcing activities from input-output tables. This approach avoids problems such as aggregation bias, potential...

This paper investigates the link between nationality of ownership and wage elasticities of labour demand at the level of the plant. In particular, we examine whether labour demand in multinationals becomes less elastic with respect to the wage if the plant has backward linkages with the local...

This paper analyzes the effect of foreign acquisition on survival and employment growth of targets using data on Swedish manufacturing plants. We separate targeted plants into those within Swedish MNEs, Swedish exporting non-MNEs, and purely domestic firms. The results, controlling for possible...

We analyse a very rich and unique panel database that provides information on exports at the firm-product level. Motivated by the recent theory of multi-product firms, we investigate what determines the survival of products in the export mix to find that, in export dynamics, characteristics of...

We use plant-level data to study the link between the local availability of services and the decision of manufacturing firms to source materials from abroad. We develop a model to generate predictions about how the intensity of international sourcing of materials depends on the availability of...

We investigate the impact of international outsourcing on productivity using plant-level data for Irish manufacturing. Specifically, we distinguish the effect of outsourcing of materials from services inputs. Moreover, we examine whether the impact on productivity is different for plants being...