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We use comparable micro level panel data for 14 countries and a set of identically specified empirical models to investigate the relationship between exports and productivity. Our overall results are in line with the big picture that is by now familiar from the literature: Exporters are more productive than non-exporters when observed and unobserved heterogeneity are controlled for, and these exporter productivity premia tend to increase with the share of exports in total sales; there is strong evidence in favour of self-selection of more productive firms into export markets, but nearly no evidence in favour of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. We document that the exporter premia differ considerably across countries in identically specified empirical models. In a meta-analysis of our results we find that countries that are more open and have more effective government report higher productivity premia. However, the level of development per se does not appear to be an explanation for the observed cross-country differences.

Against the background of the dependence of cultural institutions on public funding and the increasing pressure on public budgets, this thesis aims to make a contribution to the economic analysis of the German cultural sector. For this purpose, three empirical studies focusing on the German cultural sector are conducted, using different methods to quantify the analyzed effects. Chapter 2 describes an application of the contingent valuation method (CVM) for assessing public approval of the amount of subsidies spent on cultural facilities. For our analysis, we conducted a contingent valuation study to capture the willingness to pay (WTP) for the municipal cultural supply in Lüneburg, Germany. To identify the factors associated with the respondents’ WTP, we supplemented an ordinary least squares (OLS) and a Tobit regression model with a quantile regression (QR) model. The findings suggest the existence of non-use values. Since the QR analyzes the coefficients at different points of the distribution of the dependent variable, it accounts for the heterogeneity of preferences. Overall, the results indicate that the QR can provide useful information in deriving implications for cultural policy. In contrast to the consumption-oriented approach of chapter 2, chapters 3 and 4 focus on the production of performing arts in public theaters. Data were taken from the theater reports published by the German Stage Association (Deutscher Bühnenverein) from 1993 to 2007. Chapter 3 uses a stochastic frontier analysis approach to analyze the efficiency of German public theaters. Whether the assumption of cost-minimizing behavior is reliable in the case of public theaters is of particular interest. Thus, in addition to the input distance function model, we employ a cost function model in order to evaluate whether the cost-minimizing behavior can be maintained. We also applied several panel data models that differ in their ability to account for unobserved heterogeneity to evaluate the impact of unobserved heterogeneity on the efficiency estimates. The results indicate that the cost-minimizing assumption cannot be maintained. We also find a considerable unobserved heterogeneity across the theaters that causes a significant variation in the models’ efficiency estimates. Taken together, our results suggest that there is still space for improvement in the employment of resources in the area of performing arts production in Germany. The third study, presented in Chapter 4, discusses the development and sources of productivity in German public theaters. As labor costs increase, productivity decreases over time; this phenomenon is referred to as ”Baumol’s cost-disease”. However, productivity is not influenced only by technological change; technical efficiency and scale efficiency also play a role. Thus, which of the three factors are positive or negative drivers for productivity change in the case of German public theaters is of particular interest. Using a stochastic distance frontier approach to decompose the total factor productivity into the three different sources of productivity the findings indicate that there is no significant technological progress that can countervail the negative productivity trend caused by increasing wages and, thus, support the cost-disease hypothesis. Furthermore, increasing returns to scale for the majority of theatres were found. Chapter 5 summarizes the main results of the three empirical analyses. This is followed by concluding remarks on the need for further research.

This paper contributes to the flourishing literature on exports and productivity by using a unique newly available panel of exporting establishments from the manufacturing sector of Germany from 1995 to 2004 to test three hypotheses derived from a theoretical model by Hopenhayn (Econometrica 1992): (H1) Firms that stop exporting in year t were in t-1 less productive than firms that continue to export in t. (H2) Firms that start to export in year t are less productive than firms that export both in year t-1 and in year t. (H3) Firms from a cohort of export starters that still export in the last year of the panel were more productive in the start year than firms from the same cohort that stopped to export in between. While results for West Germany support all three hypotheses, this is only the case for (H1) and (H2) in East Germany.

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and causes of productivity differentials between exporters and their counterparts which sell on the domestic market only. This papers surveys the empirical strategies applied, and the results produced, in 45 microeconometric studies with data from 33 countries that were published between 1995 and 2004. Details aside, exporters are found to be more productive than non-exporters, and the more productive firms self-select into export markets, while exporting does not necessarily improve productivity.

This paper presents the first empirical test with German establishment level data of a hypothesis derived by Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple in a model that explains the decision of heterogeneous firms to serve foreign markets either trough exports or foreign direct investment: only the more productive firms choose to serve the foreign markets, and the most productive among this group will further choose to serve these markets via foreign direct investments. Using a non-parametric test for first order stochastic dominance it is shown that, in line with this hypothesis, the productivity distribution of foreign direct investors dominates that of exporters, which in turn dominates that of national market suppliers.