Rotterdam Brown Bag Seminars General Economics

Speaker(s)
Harro van Heuvelen (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Date
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Location
Rotterdam

This paper examines the export switching and co-exporting of products of Philippine firms over a time period of 22 years. This paper analyses how export firms change from their (initial) specific skill set over time. The skill set of a firm is assumed to be revealed by the main export product in term of yearly export revenue, also called the “Core Competency”. A new empirical stylized fact that main product switches are also frequent is found for the Philippine data. Hinting on possible changes in the skill sets of firms over time. Using co-exporting of products by the same firm in a certain year similarities between products are identified. Products more frequently co-exported are seen as more similar in terms of production. This paper finds that switching behavior depends, among other factors, on exporter age, size and the similarity of the products exported. This paper also finds that the younger/smaller firms are more likely to switch and when they switch make more unrelated switches, while the reverse is true for older/larger firms.