Industry Orientation, Exporting and Productivity

This paper aims to analyse the relation between exporting behaviour of the firms and productivity by testing for learning by exporting hypothesis in Turkish manufacturing industry. Moreover, this study examines whether exporting and productivity relations change with respect to the orientation of industry in which the firm operates. We use the data on the largest 1000 industrial enterprises of Turkey from 1997 to 2007. The results based on unbalanced dynamic panel data models estimated show that there is no evidence that exporting fosters productivity at the firm level in Turkish manufacturing industry. Disaggregation of industries with respect to their orientations does not change this result. Exporting, or increase in the exports of the firm, doesn’t seem to be one of the sources of productivity growth at least for the firms already exporting in Turkish manufacturing.