Panel Of Enterprises Research Articles

Climate policy uncertainty influences carbon emissions in the semiconductor industry

Industry carbon emissions have been increasing, yet there remains a dearth of research on the impacts of climate policy uncertainty. This study first explored the effects of climate policy uncertainty on the carbon emissions of semiconductor enterprises. We employed the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model. We constructed a Chinese climate policy uncertainty index based on electronic news entries to match the enterprise panel data structure from 2011 to 2022. The results showed an increase in climate policy uncertainty, which helped to reduce semiconductor enterprises’ carbon emissions. This effect was primarily achieved via two pathways. First, climate policy uncertainty leads to companies facing stricter environmental requirements, and these companies will proactively increase their investment in environmental, social, and governance standards to cope with the potential risks. Second, climate policy uncertainty is often accompanied by shifts in government climate policy. Governments will provide green subsidies to enterprises to achieve their policy goals. Furthermore, the policy uncertainty for the semiconductor industry could amplify the reducing effect of climate policy uncertainty on the carbon emissions from semiconductor enterprises. Climate policy uncertainty has a greater impact on non-state-owned and smaller semiconductor enterprises. Our study provides a new way to measure climate policy uncertainty, finds a new perspective based on climate policy uncertainty for exploring the potential impacts of corporate carbon emission reductions, bridges the gap between previous studies on enterprise carbon reductions and climate policy uncertainty, and offers a new path for governments to manage industrial carbon emissions.

Why Does Institutional Opening-up Promote the Enhancement of Innovation Capabilities in Chinese Enterprises?

China’s involvement in global economic governance has been a progressive and step-by-step ascent. While the domestic and international environment has undergone major changes, the process of economic globalization has taken on new trends, and China has entered a new stage of high-level opening up. This paper’s theoretical analysis suggests that high-level opening up helps enhance the quality of foreign capital utilization, thereby addressing the challenges associated with the lower technological benefits of previous foreign capital utilization and further facilitating the enhancement of innovation capabilities in Chinese enterprises. Guided by this theoretical framework, this study has measured the level of opening up in Chinese provinces from 2013 to 2022 using web crawling technology. Econometric tests conducted with Chinese enterprise panel data reveal that: firstly, First, it effectively promotes the improvement of the total innovation output of enterprises and significantly improves breakthrough innovation capabilities. This result still holds true under a series of robustness and endogeneity tests; secondly, it mainly improves local advantages and high-quality international The attraction of foreign capital and multinational companies enables local companies to achieve breakthroughs and catch-up in core technologies by learning and competing with advanced foreign companies, thereby enhancing their technological innovation capabilities; thirdly, for companies in different industries and different ownership attributes The impact of improving innovation capabilities may vary. This study helps promote a new paradigm of innovation-driven development in the context of high-level opening-up.

Research on the impact of digitalization on green development: An empirical analysis from the low-carbon strategy perspective.

With the collision between the green and low-carbon economy and the accelerating digital economy, how to realize the effect of "1+1>2" has gradually become an important topic for contributing to the high-quality development of regions and enterprises. Entrepreneurship in the digital age continues to exhibit new characteristics, and its impact on green development is also more closely related. This article focuses on the context of the low-carbon strategy, incorporating the digitalization level, entrepreneurship, and green development into the same framework. It then takes 2011-2021 Chinese provincial panel data and enterprise panel data as samples to conduct research. The results indicate the following: (1) The digitalization level has a significant positive promoting effect on the green development of regions and enterprises, and blockchain technology has the strongest promoting effect on the green development of enterprises. (2) The digitalization level drives the green development of regions and enterprises through three channels: entrepreneurs' innovative spirit, entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial spirit and entrepreneurs' contract spirit. Entrepreneurship is the intermediary bridge for the digitalization level to promote green development. (3) Environmental regulations partially serve as "accelerators" of the impact of green development. The findings of this article will provide empirical support for evaluating the impact of digitalization on green development and offer useful insights for better stimulating and cultivating entrepreneurship in the new era to empower comprehensive green development.

MZ 세대의 관계문화, 위계문화의 조직몰입 구조관계

This study aims to verify the effect of the relationship culture and hierarchical culture of the MZ generation on organizational commitment through organizational trust. The data and questionnaire data were verified as 6,279 people in the MZ generation out of a total of 9,516 workers working in 500 companies using the Human Capital Enterprise Panel (HCCP) of the Korea Vocational Competency Development Institute in 2022. Descriptive statistics were used for statistical analysis and correlation analysis, and SPSS 23 was used for confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, and mediating effects were verified through AMOS 23. The results of this study are as follows. First, it was found that relational culture had a positive (+) effect on an individual's organizational commitment. Second, it was found that hierarchical culture had a negative (-) effect on individual organizational commitment. Third, it was found that organizational trust partially mediated the relationship between relationship culture and organizational commitment, and finally, organizational trust completely mediated the relationship between hierarchical culture and organizational commitment. Through this study, companies should develop an advanced relational culture to other workers by generation within the organization, such as the MZ generation, and support and policies to supplement the hierarchical culture within the organization, which is neglected because it is reasonable for large-scale organizations, are specially required. In addition, it is necessary to implement programs that can continuously improve relationship culture to the MZ generation and increase trust in the organization rather than trust in bosses and colleagues so that they can immerse themselves in the organization. However, this study studied the relationship only with four variables: relationship culture, hierarchical culture, organizational trust, and organizational commitment, and for more sophisticated analysis, research is needed by dividing the organizational level. Finally, since this study has limitations in presenting a conceptual framework at the theoretical level and quantitative research, future research should present a framework for research and supplement qualitative research.

Housing Boom, Dutch Disease, and the Decline in China's Manufacturing Exports

AbstractDrawing on Dutch disease theory, we assess how the recent housing boom has contributed to a decline in China's manufacturing exports. Using Chinese city and enterprise panel data from 2004 to 2013, our analysis reveals that Dutch disease indeed exists and that the housing price increase has played a very important role in affecting China's manufacturing exports through two key channels: resource movement effect and spending effect. Specifically, this paper found that: (i) the housing price increase hindered labor flowing into China's manufacturing industry (resource movement effect) and caused higher inflation (spending effect); (ii) the housing boom clearly impeded China's manufacturing exports, especially after the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 2008; (iii) the impacts of the housing price increase on China's manufacturing exports were heterogenous, and were more significant for labor‐intensive manufacturing businesses, businesses that were foreign owned, less R&D intensive, or located in the central and western regions.

DOES INNOVATION EXPERIENCE AFFECT ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE FROM INTER-FIRM COLLABORATION AND R&D INVESTMENTS?

Purpose: Previous research shows that inter-firm collaboration and R&D investments have positive effects on enterprises’ product innovation performance. This study aims to assess if the performance effects are moderated by enterprises’ innovation experience. i.e., does the experience increase or decrease the innovation performance from inter-firm collaboration and R&D investments? Methods: Norwegian enterprise panel regressions between 2004 and 2016 were done on data provided by Statistics Norway. Results and implications: Consistent with the previous research, inter-firm collaboration increases enterprises’ product innovation performance. Also, R&D investments increase product innovation performance but at an exponentially decreasing rate that eventually turns negative. A novel contribution is that the results are consistent, independent of innovation experience. It implies that inexperienced and experienced enterprises have an equal absorptive capacity to innovate from inter-firm collaboration and R&D investments. Independent of innovation experience, enterprise revenues furthermore increase from new products as a function of R&D investments at an exponentially increasing rate.

A Comparative Study on the Measurement of Gender Pay Gap Analysis: Oaxaca-Blinder vs Pay Ratio Method

Purpose - This study purposes to investigate the methodology of measurement in a comparative way by pitting the traditional approach against the recently new approach: Oaxaca-Blinder medium variance and pay-ratio method. Given that Korea’s gender pay gap has been debated on diversity, equality, and inclusion, this study attempts to explore an alternative measurement method towards remedying the situation in Korea. Examining the methodology for analyzing the pay gap is crucial. Previous studies (Heath et al., 2013) have struggled to define the gender pay gap and to explain the phenomenon’s effect in the workplace. This difficulty is experienced because the scope of influence on pay differences is broad and pay-related exceptions always appear in companies.
 Design/Methodology/Approach - This study, using the data of listed companies of the Financial Supervisory Service and HCCP (Human Capital Enterprise Panel) data supported by Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, analyzes the gender wage gap in Korea in two different measurements. We employ the Human Capital Corporate Panel data (HCCP) for Oaxaca-Blinder method and collect 31,694 employees’ information between 2007 and 2017 from the database. For the organization-level approach, we extract data from the Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System (DART), which provides all the information of publicly-traded firms in Korea disclose. In the DART system, we obtain the pay amounts as well as the populations of 454 firms, randomly generated between 2019 and 2021. These data are matched to the TS2000 database to incorporate the sample firms’ financial information.
 Findings - The results of this study are notable. First, in terms of the Oaxaca-Blinder, the gender wage gap, based on the average annual salary, stands at 36% over the past 10 years. In particular, the gap notably expanded from the manufacturing industry. Second, the women pay-ratio quintile method shows an average pay gap of 32.5%. The effects of data and measurement methods are important. This means the impact of human resource related variables on the gender pay gap is much bigger and consistent in Korean enterprises.
 Research Implications - This study has the following theoretical and practical implications to resolve the pay gap. First, in the pay gap between male and female workers, it is necessary to look more closely at pay-related items and measurement method. Second, it is meaningful to strengthen the evaluation of performance through the disclosure of pay information. Third, in order to reduce the pay gap for women, it is necessary to avoid unfair discrimination in terms of personnel management not only during the employment stage but also after employment.

Regulation Effect of Smart Grid on Green Transformation of Electric Power Enterprises: Based on the Investigation of “Leader” Trap

The 2060 carbon neutral target reflects the long-term equilibrium and stability of production activities and the natural environment. As an important part of Chinese energy structure, the operation and transformation of power enterprises will face higher requirements. Although the rapid development of smart grids provides necessary technical support for power enterprises to build a modern energy system with green power as the core, whether power enterprises can use smart grids to improve their operating performance and environmental performance has yet to be discussed. The differences caused by the heterogeneity of property rights will also have an impact on the green transformation and development of enterprises. This paper selects 25 Chinese power enterprises as the research objects and uses the 2011–2019 enterprise panel data and the data envelopment analysis model to evaluate the operating performance and environmental performance of power enterprises. The results show that the overall fluctuation trend of the total factor productivity index and green total factor productivity index of power enterprises are W-shaped, and technological progress is the main driving force for the improvement of power operating performance and environmental performance; Compared with enterprises with a single power generation method, enterprises with diversified power generation methods performed better in their overall total factor productivity index. After that, text mining and machine learning methods are used to classify the text of the enterprise’s annual report to determine whether the enterprise applies smart grid technology for production and operation activities. Finally, using feasible generalized least squares method (FLGS) and dynamic panel system generalized moment estimation (SYS-GMM) to analyze the impact of smart grid on the operating performance and environmental performance of power enterprises, and the nature of corporate property rights in this process. It is found that smart grids can improve the operating performance and environmental performance of power enterprises; compared with state-owned enterprises, non-state-owned enterprises can achieve better performance in the application of smart grids to improve operating performance and environmental performance. Finally, this study provides corresponding policy recommendations for power enterprises to achieve performance improvement and green transformation development.

Shooting two hawks with one arrow: Could China's emission trading scheme promote green development efficiency and regional carbon equality?

China's carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) is an important market-based environmental regulation tool to achieve carbon neutrality targets. Numerous studies have identified the emission reduction and economic effects of the ETS, but quantitative evaluations of the ETS for regional carbon equality is rare. Based on provincial panel data and industrial enterprise panel data in China for the 1998–2017 period, this study explores whether China's ETS pilot policy brings the double dividends of green development efficiency and regional carbon equality by using the DID model and Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index. The results show that the ETS significantly improves green development efficiency and regional carbon equality. The mechanism analysis further reveals that the ETS promotes regional carbon equality by improving green total factor productivity (GTFP) and reducing investments in carbon-intensive industries in the pilot provinces, confirming the Porter hypothesis and investment transfer effect. However, the mediating effect of carbon-intensive firm migration is statistically nonsignificant, which implies that the carbon pollution haven hypothesis may not be the reason for the improvement in regional carbon equality. In addition, heterogeneous effects exist under different degrees of command-and-control environmental regulation (CER) and across different regions. Finally, policy implications are highlighted with respect to establishing a unified national carbon emission trading market and exerting synergy between ETS and CER tools.

Exploring the Adoption of the International Information Security Management System Standard ISO/IEC 27001: A Web Mining-Based Analysis

In the light of digitalization and recent EU policy initiatives, information is an important asset that organizations of all sizes and from all sectors should secure. However, in order to provide common requirements for the implementation of an information security management system, the internationally well-accepted ISO/IEC 27001 standard has not shown the expected growth rate since its publication more than a decade ago. In this article, we apply web mining to explore the adoption of ISO/IEC 27001 through a series of 2664 out of more than 900 000 German firms from the Mannheim Enterprise Panel dataset that refers to this standard on their websites. As a result, we present a ``landscape'' of ISO/IEC 27001 in Germany, which shows that firms not only seek certifications themselves but often refer on their websites to partners who are certified instead. Consequently, we estimate a probit model and find that larger and more innovative firms are more likely to be certified to ISO/IEC 27001 and that almost half of all certified firms belong to the information and communications technology (ICT) service sector. Based on our findings, we derive implications for policy makers and management and critically assess the suitability of web mining to explore the adoption of management system standards.

The influence of intelligent manufacturing on financial performance and innovation performance: the case of China

ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence is increasingly used in advanced manufacturing systems to realise intelligent manufacturing. However, there is still a lack of empirical research on the impact of intelligent manufacturing on enterprise performances, especially for China. The author adopts the enterprise panel data of intelligent manufacturing implemented by China’s manufacturing industry in 2014 to 2019, and uses propensity score matching with difference in differences (PSM-DID) method to investigate the impact of intelligent manufacturing on financial performance and innovation performance. The research yields two main conclusions. First, the implementation of intelligent manufacturing has a significant role in promoting the financial performance and innovation performance of manufacturing enterprises. Second, technology-intensive industries improve the quantity of innovation by implementing intelligent manufacturing, thus promoting the improvement of short-term financial performance, but the improvement of innovation quality has a negative impact on short-term financial performance. In labour-intensive industries, the relationship between financial performance and innovation performance is not obvious.

The impact of command-and-control environmental regulation on enterprise total factor productivity: A quasi-natural experiment based on China’s “Two Control Zone” policy

Command-and-control environmental regulation is a traditional environmental policy that is still widely used in developing countries. This study examined a rarely discussed but significant issue for environmental sustainability and economic development—the impact of command-and-control environmental regulation on enterprise total factor productivity growth—based on a large enterprise-level sample. Employing China’s “Two Control Zone” policy as a quasi-natural experiment, we used a Chinese industrial enterprise panel dataset from 1998 to 2007 to estimate the effects of command-and-control environmental regulation in a difference-in-difference framework. It is found that command-and-control environmental regulation hassignificantly hindered the growth of enterprise total factor productivity, and this negative effect was lagging and continuous. In addition, we leaned that this negative effect mainly came from the increase in costs of enterprises and the negative impact on the enterprise resource allocation efficiency. When considering enterprise heterogeneity in terms of pollution intensity, size, and ownership, the study further found that the negative effects are exacerbated for enterprises in more heavily polluting industries, those of smaller size, and those owned by foreign companies, respectively. Our research is a reexamination of the Porter hypothesis in China, and fills the gap in the literature on the micro effects of command-and-control policy on enterprise total factor productivity for developing countries. Based on a rigorous empirical analysis, we conclude that it is difficult to achieve a win–win scenario with sustainable environmental development and enterprise total factor productivity growth under command-and-control environmental regulation. Environmental regulations should have clear objectives and take a flexible approach, and it is necessary to adopt diversified environmental regulation policies based on market instruments.

Do Institutions Promote Firm Performance? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines the roles of institutions in driving firms’ performance using merged Enterprise Panel Survey data sets collected and compiled by World Bank for 23 sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study used labour productivity as a proxy of firms’ performance due to its advantages over total factor productivity. To address the problems of multiple sources of heterogeneity and simultaneity biases, the study employed high-dimensional fixed-effects model together with its instrumental variable version to estimate the impacts of institutions on firms’ performance in SSA. The study established that institutions contribute significantly and positively to firms’ performance in SSA. The study infers that control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality and rule of law are pro-market institutions that effectively create favourable business and investment climates. Other findings of the study include capital–labour ratio, export, high school, average labour costs, research and development (R&D) and capacity utilisation, which all drive the firm’s performance in SSA. Thus, the findings imply that prevailing and future policies on business, trade and investment in SSA should also incorporate institutional reforms as one of the essential measures to rapidly and sustainably boost economic performance in the region.

Environmental regulations, environmental governance efficiency and the green transformation of China's iron and steel enterprises

Based on micro-level enterprise panel data from 2005 to 2014, a slack-based global data envelopment analysis (DEA) model and a global Malmquist-Luenberger index model are used to calculate the environmental governance efficiency (EGE) of China's iron and steel enterprises (ISEs). Then, the different effects of two types of environmental regulation on EGE of China's ISEs are analysed. The results show that the overall level of EGE for China's ISEs has remained low over the past 10 years. The total factor environmental governance efficiency (TFEGE) presents a decreasing trend from 2005 to 2014, and the decline in TFEGE is mainly attributed to the technical progress change index (GTPCH). Moreover, the bootstrap DEA method is used for bias correction, and the correction efficiency values are all within the confidence interval, improving the accuracy of EGE evaluation. The regression analysis results show that different types of environmental regulations exert heterogeneous effects on TFEGE. The relationship between market incentive environmental regulation and TFEGE has an inverted U-shaped, implying that although market incentive environmental regulation may improve the TFEGE in the short term, continuously increasing this intensity would inhibit it. However, command control environmental regulation and TFEGE have a positive but not significant relationship.

The Incidence of Social Security Payroll Taxes: Evidence From China

The Chinese government enforced public security system reform in the economic transition period. Now, the enterprise’ social insurance premium, a kind of payroll tax, is nearly 40% of the total wage in China. It is thought enterprises may transfer the burden of payroll taxes to workers by reducing their wages. Does the level of an enterprise’s social security payroll taxes influence their workers’ wages? Using the Chinese Large and Medium-size Manufacturing Enterprises (CLMME) dataset to construct an enterprise panel data from 2004 to 2007, we employ an empirical study to provide evidence on the issue. We utilize the fixed effects model, random effects model and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method to address the heterogeneity problem, initial dependent problem and endogenous problem. It is found that in general, increased social security payroll taxes negatively affect the workers’ wages, which indicates that many enterprises may transfer the payroll taxes burden onto their workers. Increased social security payroll taxes may decrease the wage levels for workers in both the public sector and the private sector, but the negative effect is greater for workers in the private sector than in the public sector.

Investment climate, outward orientation and manufacturing firm productivity: new empirical evidence

ABSTRACTDrawing on the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, we revisit the link between firm-level investment climate and productive performance for a panel of enterprises surveyed twice in time in 70 developing countries and 11 manufacturing industries. We take advantage of the time dimension available for an increasing number of countries to tackle the endogeneity issue stressed in previous studies. We also use pertinent econometric techniques to address other biases inherent in the data (e.g.measurement errors, missing observations and multicollinearity). Our results reinforce previous findings by validating, with a larger than usual sample of countries and industries, the importance of a larger set of environment variables. We show that infrastructure quality, information & communication technologies, skills and experience of the labour force, cost of and access to financing, security and political stability, competition and government relation contribute to firms’ and countries’ performances gap. The empirical analysis also illustrates that firms which choose an outward orientation have higher productivity level. Nevertheless, outward oriented enterprises are more sensitive to investment climate limitations. These findings have important policy implications by showing which dimensions of the business environment, in which industry, could help manufacturing firms to be more competitive in the present context of increasing globalization.

Intensive margin of land use in CGE models – Reviving CRESH functional form

In this study I suggest that computable general equilibrium (CGE) studies of land use change could benefit from more careful modeling of the intensive margin. That requires more attention placed on the production function.I support my claim with empirical estimation and corresponding CGE simulations. The empirical data is a farm enterprise panel of Finnish farms for years 2004–2009. I run two short run test simulations with the ORANI-G model: (1) land productivity improvement, and (2) decrease in agricultural subsidies.The empirical results favor the CRESH functional form over the prevailing Cobb–Douglas and CES forms. The CGE simulations show that the results are sensitive to the functional form choice. CRESH portrays weaker changes in land use in the first simulation than its alternatives. In the second simulation CRESH portrayed more land use adjustment than the CES alternatives. Cobb–Douglas was clearly the worst alternative in the empirical part and showed more diverging results in the simulation results as well. Accordingly, an inadequate treatment of intensive margin in land use CGE models might yield misleading conclusions and faulty policy recommendations.

The Mannheim Enterprise Panel (MUP) and Firm Statistics for Germany

The Mannheim Enterprise Panel (Mannheimer Unternehmenspanel – MUP) of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) is the most comprehensive micro database of companies in Germany outside the official business register (which is not accessible to the public). The MUP is based on the firm data pool of Creditreform e.V., which is the largest credit rating agency in Germany. At the end of 2013, the MUP contained information on 7.7 Mio firms, of which about 3.2 Mio were still active. Comparisons of the active stock of firms in the MUP with the Business Register of the Federal Statistical Office indicate that the MUP gives by and large a representative picture of the corporate landscape in Germany. The MUP is a valuable database for analyzing the number of start‐ups and firm closures on a yearly basis for Germany. Further, the MUP is the sampling frame for the ZEW firm surveys and it is used for analyzing the development of firms over time.

Which Factors Determine the Upgrading of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)? The Case of Egypt

Many low- and middle-income countries have many micro and small but only a very few medium-sized and large enterprises. Micro and small firms seem to have difficulties growing into medium-sized companies. This is problematic because it is medium-sized companies that tend to be the main creators of higher quality and better-paid employment, motors of innovation and economic diversification, and future exporters.Companies grow for various reasons that are beyond their control, such as an increase in demand or failures of competitors. However, the only strategy that an enterprise can control is growth through innovation, which we term ‘upgrading’.A large strand of literature discusses the factors that favour or hamper the upgrading of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): entrepreneur characteristics (education, gender, behaviour, etc.), firm characteristics (sector, location, workforce characteristics, etc.), inter-firm linkages (integration into value chains, clusters or business networks) and the business environment (macroeconomic and political stability, regulation, availability of finance, etc.). However, only a few studies provide empirical evidence for determining the most significant factors for SME upgrading in low- and middle-income countries.This study is meant to fill this gap thereby referring to Egypt. It is based on enterprise panel data from 2004 and 2008, a survey conducted by the authors in early 2012 among 102 SMEs and interviews with experts on private-sector development. It draws five main conclusions: – The scarcity of medium-sized enterprises in Egypt is not only due to the difficulty of SMEs to upgrade but also to their challenges in remaining medium-sized – or large.– In Egypt the main determinants for upgrading are the entrepreneur’s: (i) human capital (quality of education, work experience and international exposure), (ii) motivation and readiness to take risks, (iii) investment in human resources, (iv) market research, (v) access to finance and (vi) ability to deal with persistent deficits in the rule of law. – SMEs in Egypt are also constrained by the business environment, notably problems in state–business interactions such as licensing, taxation, inspections and competition control. But these problems are mainly due to deficits in law enforcement rather than what these procedures cost in time and money.– While integration into value chains and clusters might help SMEs to upgrade, the great reluctance of Egyptian entrepreneurs to co-operate with each other means that they cannot benefit from the advantages of vertical or horizontal business linkages. – The success of an SME largely depends on the owner’s capabilities. All SME owners in Egypt are constrained by structural factors such as deficiencies regarding education, skilled workers, market information, access to finance and law enforcement. However, a few SMEs man-age to circumvent these obstacles.To enable more SMEs to upgrade, the government of Egypt should improve its educational and vocational training system, help entrepreneurs conduct human resource development and market research, ease SME owners’ access to finance and strengthen the rule of law.

Exports and Firm Characteristics in German Manufacturing Industries: New Evidence from Representative Panel Data

Germany is one of the leading actors on the world market for manufactured goods, but not every firm from a manufacturing industry in Germany is an exporter. In 2006, the share of exporters in all enterprises was 69 percent in West Germany and 52 percent in East Germany. Reliable information on the characteristics of exporting and non-exporting firms is important to guide theorists and policy makers in an evidence-based way. This paper uses recently released rich, high-quality data for a large representative panel of enterprises from German manufacturing industries to investigate the links between firm characteristics and export activities, demonstrating the decisive role of human capital intensity for exporting. It links these findings to the recent literature from the new new trade theory on international activities of heterogeneous firms, which emphasizes the role of productivity in exporting. It shows that productivity is important for exporting as is hypothesized in the formal theoretical models, but that contrary to the assumption made in these models, productivity is not (only) the result from a random draw from the productivity distribution—it is strongly positively related to human capital intensity. JEL Classification: F14