Esther Ann Bøler

The vast majority of world trade flows is between firms. Only recently has research in international trade started to emphasize the importance of the connections between exporters and importers both in aggregate trade flows and in the negative relationship between trade and geographic distance. This chapter documents the role of firm-to-firm connections in trade flows and the formation and duration of these importer-exporter relationships. Using customs data from Colombia for 1995-2014, we are able to identify both the Colombian importing firm and the foreign exporter in every Colombian import and export transaction. We document both the nature of these bilateral trading relationships and their evolution over time.

This study argues that there is a systematic difference in the gender wage gap (GWG) between exporting firms and non-exporters. Exporters may require greater commitment from their employees, such as working particular hours to communicate with partners in different time zones or travelling at short notice, and may therefore disproportionately reward employee flexibility. If women are less flexible, or perceived as such, exporters will exhibit a higher GWG than non-exporters. This hypothesis is examined using matched employer-employee data from the Norwegian manufacturing sector for 1996-2010. The results suggest a firm's entry into exporting increases the GWG by about 3 percentage points for college educated workers. A lower overlap in business hours between the Norwegian exporter and its foreign markets and a greater need need for interactions with foreign buyers are associated with a higher GWG.

Two identical firms that start exporting in different months, one each in January and December, will report dramatically different exports for the first calendar year. This partial-year effect biases down first year export levels and biases up first year export growth rates. For Peruvian exporters, the partial-year bias is large: first-year export levels are understated by 54 percent and the first year growth rate is overstated by 112 percentage points. Correcting the partial-year effect dramatically reduces first year export growth rates, raises initial export levels and almost doubles the contribution of net firm entry and exit to overall export growth.

This paper studies the impact of an R&D cost shock on R&D investments, imported inputs and their joint impact on firm performance. We introduce imported inputs into a model of R&D and endogenous productivity, and show that R&D and international sourcing are complementary activities. Exploiting the introduction of an R&D tax credit in Norway in 2002, we find that cheaper R&D stimulated not only R&D investments but also imports of intermediates, quantitatively consistent with the model. An implication of our work is that improved access to imported inputs promotes R&D investments and, ultimately, technological change.

We analyze how a major negative shock to the producers of fossil fuels may lead to a shift from dirty to clean R&D along the supply chain. First, we develop a theoretical framework of directed technical change, showing that adjustment costs in R&D activity can lead fossil energy sector suppliers to shift their R&D activity towards clean innovation more than other firms, as a consequence of a negative oil price shock. Second, we investigate the impact of a major drop in the oil price in 2014 on clean R&D. Relying on rich firm level trade data, we propose a novel method of identifying firms’ exposure to the price shock. We find that more exposed firms increased their clean R&D investments more than less exposed firms. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the drivers of clean technological change, which is vital to assess the effectiveness of different climate policy measures, including carbon pricing.

This paper aims to close the gap between the literature on the firm-level effects of financial constraints and the literature on the aggregate effects of financial constraints and misallocation. We make use of a reform that allowed firms to use patents as standalone collateral and estimate the impact of improved access to collateral on firms’ performance, access to credit and equity. We develop a theoretical framework to guide the analysis and to quantify the aggregate impact of reduced financial constraints on misallocation and productivity. Our empirical results suggest that reduced financial constraints led to an increase in firms’ capital stock and bank debt. Our framework provides a simple mapping between data moments, reduced form results and model counterparts and sidesteps many of the challenges in the traditional misallocation literature. Parameterizing the model we find quantitatively large gains in output per worker in the sectors of the economy dominated by constrained firms.

This paper investigates skill-biased technical change at the firm level using rich Norwegian data. In the theoretical framework, firms invest in R&D to enhance their productivity which has a factor-neutral and a skill-biased component. Firms investing in R&D are found to have higher levels and growth rates of skill- biased productivity. The estimated growth rate of skill-biased productivity is sizable enough to account for the majority of the observed increase in the skill premium in Norway over the sample period. The results are supported by exploiting a policy change to estimate the causal effect of innovation on relative skill demand.