The Role of Services for Manufacturing Firms' Exports

Arbeitspapier

Manufacturing firms increasingly focus on services. This trend is evident in their composition of input, in-house production and seemingly also in total sale. Firms' services intensity may affect their productivity, and thereby competitiveness abroad. Services are also instrumental in connecting to the foreign market and can help firms to differentiate their offers. However, only bits and pieces of the relation between services and manufacturing's exports have been analysed in previous literature. This study contributes by discussing the role of services for the firm, arriving at some conjectures and testing them empirically. Export intensity is regressed on two services parameters, applying a fractional model to a rich panel of firms in Sweden in the period 2001-2007. The microeconometric results suggest that there is an effect of services inputs, while controlling for covariates and firm heterogeneity. Raising the proportion of services in in-house production, on average, yields higher export intensity. Buying-in more services is associated with higher export intensity for firms in selected industries. Overall, the study provides new firm-level evidence of the role of services as inputs in manufacturing.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 10/2012

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Empirical Studies of Trade ; Contracting Out; Joint Ventures; Technology Licensing ; Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope ; Industry Studies: Manufacturing: General ; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
• Subject: firm ; export intensity ; manufacturing ; services ; intangibles ; innovation

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Lodefalk, Magnus
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Örebro University School of Business
• (where): Örebro
• (when): 2012

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/244484
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET