Foster-McGregor, Neil, Isaksson, Anders, Kaulich, Florian. 2013. Importing, Productivity and Absorptive Capacity in Sub-Saharan African Manufacturing Firms. BIT Working Paper 08/2013, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
BibTeX
Abstract
Our study extends the recent literature on the importer-productivity relationship to a firm-level dataset for sub-Saharan Africa. Using a cross-section sample of 3,090 firms in 19 countries, we find that importers are more productive than non-importers. The observed importer premium is found to be robust to firm-specific characteristics and to a number of alternative estimation methods. Furthermore, we examine the importance of absorptive capacity in enhancing the benefits from importing. Using recently developed quantile threshold regression methods, we find that higher levels of absorptive capacity, as measured by human capital, are associated with a stronger relationship between importing and productivity.
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Status of publication | Published |
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Affiliation | WU |
Type of publication | Working/discussion paper, preprint |
Language | English |
Title | Importing, Productivity and Absorptive Capacity in Sub-Saharan African Manufacturing Firms |
Title of whole publication | BIT Working Paper 08/2013, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) |
Year | 2013 |
URL | http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/user_media_upgrade/What_we_do/Topics/Business__investment_and_technology_services/Importing_Productivity_and_Absorptive_Capacity_in_SSA_Manufacturing_Firm_AI__2_.pdf |
Associations
- People
- Kaulich, Florian (Former researcher)
- External
- Foster-McGregor, Neil (wiiw, Austria)
- Isaksson, Anders (UNIDO, Austria)
- Organization
- Department of Economics (Kubin) (Details)
- Research areas (Ă–STAT Classification 'Statistik Austria')
- 5300 Economics (Details)
- 5334 Political economic policy (Details)
- 5344 Foreign trade (Details)