Exporting and the Firm’s Performance “Evidence from the Manufacturing firms in Iran” September 2018

In this paper, we investigate the relationship of the firms’ performance and their export status: 1) How are exporting firms different from home producers? 2) How does the performance of a firm evolve before starting to export? 3) After starting to export, how does the performance of a firm change? Using Iranian manufacturing plant level data, we find that Iranian exporters perform much better than non-exporters; on average they perform significantly better in sales by 34%, in value-added by 28%, in employment by 37%, in TFP by 25%, in labor productivity by 26% and in energy productivity by 24%. Iranian exporters grow faster in these measures than non-exporters before starting to export. But after starting to export, the size measures are still better than non-exporters while the growth measures are not significantly different from others. Finally, the exiters have severe significant decline in both level and growth measures.
JEL Classification: F10