Export Destinations and Input Prices

Bastos, Paulo ; Silva, Joana ; Verhoogen, Eric

American Economic Association

关键词: FIRM BEHAVIOR;    EXPORT QUALITY;    INPUT QUALITY;   

DOI  :  10.1257/aer.20140647
RP-ID  :  126636

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines the relationship between the destination of exports and the input prices paid by firms, using detailed customs and firm-product-level data from Portugal. Both ordinary least squares regressions and an instrumental-variable strategy using exchange-rate movements (interacted with indicators for initial exports) as a source of variation in destinations indicate that exporting to richer countries leads firms to pay higher prices for inputs, other things equal. The results are supportive of what we call the income-based quality-choice channel: selling to richer destinations leads firms to raise the average quality of goods they produce and to purchase higher-quality inputs.