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Firm Productivity and Exports in the Wholesale Sector: Evidence from Japan

Recent works show that wholesale exporters play a large role in international trade. Wholesalers provide intermediate services for manufacturers and account for a substantial portion of total export values for Italy, Japan, and the United States. This study seeks to provide the first evidence on the link between firm productivity and exports by wholesalers, using Japanese firm-level data. Empirical analysis reveals that wholesale firms are heterogeneous and that exporters are more productive than non-exporters in the wholesale sector, as is seen in the manufacturing sector. In addition, the analysis provides the evidence that exporters with foreign subsidiaries tend to be more productive than those without and that they outperform the latter in terms of other measures such as average exports, export-sales ratio, and the extensive margin of exports. These results are in line with the firm heterogeneity model of exports and are similar with the previous empirical studies on manufacturing.