How effective are direct government policies for boosting exports? We answer this question with a structured overview of 34 studies covering 26 countries around the world, and in doing so, we provide nine findings. We show export boosting policies are heterogenenous by design and include export...

The paper offers a novel explanation for China's manufacturing exports performance after WTO entry. Building on stylized facts about low-wage country exporters, a theoretical model is developed to analyze reduced trade policy uncertainty. A global (non-destination specific) component of...

This paper uses micro-data fromtheWorld Bank Investment Climate Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership and access to external finance affect the likelihood of manufacturers in emerging markets to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for differences...

This paper uses micro-data fromtheWorld Bank Investment Climate Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership and access to external finance affect the likelihood of manufacturers in emerging markets to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for differences...

This paper uses firm level data from the Flash Eurobarometer 421 survey conducted in June 2015 in 34 European countries to investigate the link between having a website and international firm activities in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). We find that firms which are present in the web...

The use of big data analytics (including data mining and predictive analytics) by firms can be expected to increase productivity and reduce trade costs, which should be positively related to export activities. This paper uses firm level data from the Flash Eurobarometer 486 survey conducted in...

The use of robots by firms can be expected to go hand in hand with higher productivity, higher product quality and more product innovation, which should be positively related to export activities. This paper uses firm level data from the Flash Eurobarometer 486 survey conducted in February - May...

The use of cloud computing by firms can be expected to go hand in hand with higher productivity, more innovations, and lower costs, and, therefore, should be positively related to export activities. Empirical evidence on the link between cloud computing and exports, however, is missing. This...

This paper uses firm level data from the World Bank Enterprise surveys conducted in 2019 and from the COVID-19 follow-up surveys conducted in 2020 in eight European countries to investigate the link between exporting before the pandemic and firm survival until 2020. The estimated effect of...

Empirical models for intensive or extensive margins of trade that relate measures of exports to firm characteristics are usually estimated by variants of (generalized) linear models. Usually, the firm characteristics that explain these export margins enter the empirical model in linear form,...