Record Details

Replication Data for: Exporting and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title Replication Data for: Exporting and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOGMVI
 
Creator Atkin, David
Khandelwal, Amit K.
Osman, Adam
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description We conduct a randomized experiment that generates exogenous variation in the access to foreign markets for rug producers in Egypt. Combined with detailed survey data, we causally identify the impact of exporting on firm performance. Treatment firms report 16–26% higher profits and exhibit large improvements in quality alongside reductions in output per hour relative to control firms. These findings do not simply reflect firms being offered higher margins to manufacture high-quality products that take longer to produce. Instead, we find evidence of learning-by-exporting whereby exporting improves technical efficiency. First, treatment firms have higher productivity and quality after controlling for rug specifications. Second, when asked to produce an identical domestic rug using the same inputs and same capital equipment, treatment firms produce higher quality rugs despite no difference in production time. Third, treatment firms exhibit learning curves over time. Finally, we document knowledge transfers with quality increasing most along the specific dimensions that the knowledge pertained to.
 
Subject Social Sciences
 
Contributor Rubio, Karl