Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers
Creation-Date: 2018-07-23
Number: 18-062/VI
Author-Name: Aksel (A.) Erbahar
Author-Email: erbahar@ese.eur.nl
Author-Workplace-Name: Erasmus School of Economics
Title: Two Worlds Apart? Export Demand Shocks and Domestic Sales 
Abstract: Traditional heterogeneous firms and trade models predict no causal relationship between firms' exports and domestic sales. This paper, using a rich dataset on Turkish firms for the 2005-14 period, analyzes the relationship between firm-product sales in different markets for the first time in the literature to identify the channels that link exports and domestic sales. First, I use an instrumental variables strategy and establish that an exogenous doubling of exports increases a firm's domestic sales by 26 percent on average--a result that is mostly driven by small firms. Second, I do an analogous exercise at the firm-product level, and find coefficients that are 62 percent larger, hinting to the importance of product-specific scale effects. Moreover, I propose a novel approach to isolate the production versus non-production factors that influence firm dynamics by focusing on non-produced (or carry-along trade, CAT) exports. I find that CAT exports also affect domestic sales positively, suggesting that spillovers at the firm level such as the easing of liquidity constraints play a role. In the process, I reveal that export demand shocks influence firms' expansion in terms of employment, wages per employee, and investment.
Classification-JEL: F1; F14; F61; L20
Keywords: international trade; domestic sales; export shocks; carry-along trade
File-URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/18062.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 573562 bytes
Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20180062