Working Paper: NBER ID: w18962
Authors: Claudio Labanca; Danielken Molina; Marc Andreas Muendler
Abstract: Exporters differ markedly in export-market performance. We document that this heterogeneity is not strongly reflected in workforce education or occupations but it closely relates to the presence of a few workers with prior export experience. We employ a novel identification strategy to isolate how a firm’s hiring decision at home responds to exogenous changes in product demand abroad. Combining Brazilian exporter and linked employer–employee data, we show that firms act on favorable export market conditions by hiring workers with prior experience from incumbent exporters in preparation to export. We find that firms concentrate this preparatory hiring of experts in skilled blue-collar occupations, and that firms separate from the previously hired experts in case the predicted export market entry fails to materialize. The evidence is consistent with the tenet that a few exporting experts in select occupations shape a firm’s competitive advantage.
Keywords: export market performance; worker skill; export experience; Brazilian exporters
JEL Codes: F14; F16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Increase in the probability of export market participation (F10) | Increase in the hiring of workers with prior export experience (F16) |
| Increase in the probability of export market participation (F10) | Increase in the number of hires from exporters (F29) |
| Favorable foreign market conditions (F23) | Increase in firms' labor demand (J23) |
| Hiring skilled blue-collar workers (J24) | Enhanced export competitiveness (F14) |
| Firms that fail to become exporters after hiring experts (F10) | Separation from these workers (J63) |