Arbeitspapier

Trade and Migration: Firm-Level Evidence

Migration has been associated with higher levels of trade. Previous studies interpret this as evidence of migrants' ability to lower trade costs. Nevertheless, no study has investigated the impact of migrants on firms' foreign trade. Thus, they fail to both provide evidence on the role that migrants may play in lowering firms' trade costs, and exactly through which mechanisms the impact is derived. This study, being the first to study in depth the impact of immigration on trade at the firm level, bridges this gap in research. It utilizes new and unique employer-employee data for 12,000 Swedish firms, for the period 1998-2007, in a firm-level gravity framework. It provides novel firm-level evidence, demonstrating a significant, positive, and robust impact of immigrants in raising firms' foreign trade. Migrants are found to increase trade both on the extensive and intensive product margin. Further, the study is able to conclude that the sustained effect mainly derives from lower information frictions through superior knowledge of foreign-markets, although contacts are also important.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Working Paper ; No. 2011:39

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
Empirical Studies of Trade
International Migration
Thema
trade costs
information
trust
migration
heterogeneous firms
gravity
firmlevel data
product margins

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Hatzigeorgiou, Andreas
Lodefalk, Magnus
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Lund University, School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics
(wo)
Lund
(wann)
2011

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:45 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Hatzigeorgiou, Andreas
  • Lodefalk, Magnus
  • Lund University, School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics

Entstanden

  • 2011

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