Evaluating the contribution of exporting to UK productivity growth: Some microeconomic evidence

This study assesses the contribution of exporting activities to aggregate productivity growth in the UK for all market-based sectors for the period 1996–2004, using a weighted FAME dataset. Based on decompositions of productivity growth, our findings suggest that, overall, exporting firms experience faster productivity growth than non-exporting firms and therefore contribute more to national productivity growth. In addition, aggregate productivity for exporters benefits from a large contribution from ‘continuing’ firms improving their productivity, as well as exporters that have been taken-over/merged or started-up as new firms. In contrast, most of the TFP improvement for non-exporters is attributable to lower productivity firms exiting, rather than from internal improvements or the productivity-enhancing impact of new firms.