TY  - JOUR
AU  - Loecker,Jan De
TI  - A Note on Detecting Learning by Exporting
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 16548
PY  - 2010
Y2  - November 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16548
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16548.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jan De Loecker
Department of Economics
307 Fisher Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544-1021
Tel: 609/258-2149
E-Mail: jdeloeck@princeton.edu
AB  - Learning by exporting refers to the mechanism whereby firms improve their performance (productivity) after entering export markets. Although this mechanism is often mentioned in policy documents, a significant share of econometric studies has not found evidence for this hypothesis. This paper shows that the methods used to come to the latter conclusion suffer from a large internal inconsistency: they rely on an exogenous evolving productivity process. I show how recent proxy estimators can accommodate endogenous productivity processes such as learning by exporting. I rely on my framework to discuss the bias introduced by ignoring such a process and how adjusting for it can lead to detect significant productivity gains upon export entry. I estimate my model on standard firm-level data and find substantial additional productivity gains from entering export markets.
ER  -