Import, Productivity, and Export Performances

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this article is twofold. First, we analyze whether the decision of where to import from is affected by firms’ ex-ante characteristics. Second, we analyze how the origin of imports affects firms’ productivity, export sales, and the number of export markets. Using extensive data on Swedish manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2020, we uncover several significant insights. Nearly 80% of the firms engage in international trade. The smallest firms operate exclusively as exporters, medium-sized firms as importers, and the largest firms engage in two-way trading. While most imports originate from high-wage countries, there has been a gradual shift to low-wage countries over time. Self-selection is evident, with highly productive firms importing from all sources, followed by firms that exclusively import from either low-wage or high-wage countries, and the lowest-productive firms not importing. By controlling for self-selection using the Event Study approach and difference-in-differences matching estimator, we find that large importing firms exhibit no significant differences in productivity and export sales in comparison to their non-importing counterparts. However, small importing firms show increased productivity growth, driven by high-wage imports. Both small and large firms importing from high- and low-wage countries tend to access more high-wage export markets than non-importers.