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...

We use micro panel data for producers in seven two-digit manufacturing industries in South Korea and Taiwan and identify a number of systematic differences in industry structure between the countries. Our empirical findings indicate Taiwanese industries are characterised by less concentrated...

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...

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...

This paper examines two potential channels of knowledge acquisition that underlie firm productivity growth in the Taiwanese electronics industry: participation in the export market and investments in R&D and/or worker training. We focus on the argument that a firm's own investments in R&D are...

Widespread empirical evidence indicates that exporting producers have higher productivity than nonexporters, although the reasons why are unclear. Some analysts argue that exporters acquire knowledge of new production methods, inputs, and product designs from their international contacts, and...