Exporting and Plant-Level Efficiency Gains: It’s in the Measure
研究发现，使用基于收入的度量会低估出口带来的效率提升，而采用不受价格影响的效率指标后，智利、哥伦比亚和墨西哥的制造业企业在出口后实现了可观的效率增长，且出口与技术投资互补是重要驱动因素。
While there is strong evidence that more productive plants select into exporting, the literature has struggled to identify export-related efficiency gains within plants. We show that this is due to the common use of revenue-based productivity measures (TFPR): more efficient producers tend to charge lower prices, leading to a downward bias in TFPR. Using census panels of Chilean, Colombian, and Mexican manufacturing plants, we find sizable efficiency gains after export entry based on efficiency measures that are not affected by output prices. Evidence suggests that a complementarity between exporting and investment in technology is an important driver of these gains.