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Abstract This paper empirically examines the learning-by-exporting theory from a new angle: how firms innovate. Two innovation strategies are studied: one is independent innovation if a firm conducts in-house research and development activities on its own; the other is spillover innovation if a firm adopts external technologies and knowledge from the others. We acquire firm-level data from 41 economies between 2017 and 2019. The learning-by-exporting effect is then interpreted as a positive linkage between firms’ exports and productivity, which is estimated semi-parametrically. After implementing a three-step estimation method that addresses endogeneity, we find that the realization of learning-by-exporting is importantly subject to firms’ innovation strategies. A significant learning-by-exporting effect can only be detected among firms with spillover innovation, while exporting cannot effectively enhance independent innovators’ performance. Multiple heterogeneity tests support this finding. Discussions and implication analyses follow. JEL codes: F14, F61, O12, O33, Q55
Ruohan Wu (Tue,) studied this question.