Trade, Technology and Productivity: A Study of Brazilian Manufacturers 1986-1998

By Marc-Andreas Muendler. Social Science Research Network, 2004

381 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Brazil's trade liberalization between 1990 and 1993, and its partial reversal in 1995, are used to study how reduced inward trade barriers affect productivity. The production function of Brazilian manufacturers is estimated at the ISIC3 two-digit level under various alternatives, including an extension of Olley and Pakes' (1996) procedure. Firm-level productivity is inferred and then related to trade. Findings suggest that (1) foreign competition pressures firms to raise productivity markedly, whereas (2) the use of foreign inputs plays a minor role for productivity change. (3) The shutdown probability of inefficient firms rises with competition from abroad, thus contributing positively to aggregate productivity. Counterfactual simulations indicate that the competitive push (1) is an important source of immediate productivity change, while the elimination of inefficient firms (3) unfolds its impact slowly.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e86e07dc4494d48d03d6e433f28081186d0b9973

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

Citations in the corpus

Trade Diversification, Income, and Growth: What Do We Know? (2013, positive): “Muendler (2004) does not find however a substantial impact of increased use of imported inputs on productivity for Brazil in the early 1990s.”
Distributional Effects of Globalization in Developing Countries (2007, background): “An attempt to relate trade liberalization to transitional unemployment was undertaken by Attanasio, Goldberg, and Pavcnik (2004) in the context of the Colombian trade liberalization.”
Fear of China: Is there a Future for Manufacturing in Latin America? (2004, neutral): “Long periods of overvalued exchange rates in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina have taken a heavy toll on tradables in general and on manufacturing in particular.”
The Response of the Informal Sector to Trade Liberalization (2003, positive): “25 We use the nominal exchange rate (real/$US) from Muendler (2002). We do not use the nominal effective exchange rate from IMF because it is only available since 1992.”
Intermediate input imports and innovations: Evidence from Chinese firms' patent filings (2016, background): “For example, van Biesebroeck (2003) finds that there is no productivity improvement for Columbia firms through the use of input import.7 Muendler (2004) also finds that the use of foreign inputs plays a minor role in the productivity change of Brazilian firms.”
Does importing more inputs raise exports? Firm-level evidence from France (2013, neutral): “Firms boost their efficiency gains by sourcing their intermediate goods from abroad 1 Muendler (2004) stands as an exception.”
What Determines Productivity (2011, background): “Examples include Marcela Eslava et al. (2004), Marc-Andreas Muendler (2004), Bernard, Jensen, and Schott (2006), Ana M. Fernandes (2007), and Verhoogen (2008).”
Imported Intermediate Inputs and Domestic Product Growth: Evidence from India (2010, neutral): “(2008), Amiti and Konings (2007), Halpern, Koren and Szeidl (2006)), with Muendler (2004) being”
Does Services Liberalization Benefit Manufacturing Firms? Evidence from the Czech Republic (2011, neutral): “Muendler (2004), however, concludes that this channel plays only a minor role.”
Economic geography and wages in Brazil: Evidence from micro-data (2010, neutral): “Menezes-Filho and Muendler (2007) do find evidence of large labor displacements from import competing industries due to”