Improved Access to Foreign Markets Raises Plant-Level Productivity… for Some Plants
利用加拿大工厂对美国关税削减的反应，研究发现关税削减促使工厂增加出口，进而提高了劳动生产率、产品创新和先进技术采用率，但效果因工厂而异。
Market size matters for innovation and hence for productivity. Improved access to foreign markets will thus encourage firms to simultaneously export and invest in raising productivity. We examine this insight using the responses of Canadian plants to the elimination of U.S. tariffs. Unique "plant-specific" tariff cuts serve as an instrument for changes in exporting. We find that Canadian plants that were induced by the tariff cuts to start exporting or to export more (a) increased their labor productivity, (b) engaged in more product innovation, and (c) had higher adoption rates for advanced manufacturing technologies. Further, these responses were heterogeneous. (c) 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..