Abstract
The present paper examines multi-product exporters in Belgium, considering their importance and the relationship between the margins of trade and firm productivity. We use proxies for trade costs to quantify the extensive and intensive margin adjustments of trade. Relatively few exporting firms account for the majority of Belgian exports and these large firms have greater productivity and value-added, more employees and more exported products than smaller exporters. Across firms, productivity is positively associated with firm exports. More productive firms export more products to more countries and have higher average product-country export flows. The extensive and intensive margins are equally important in total firm exports.
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Special thanks goes to Jean-Marc Troch at the National Bank of Belgium for assistance and help with the data. We are also grateful to Christophe Piette and Kris de Spiegelaere for data clarification and Danny Delcambre for providing us with supplementary files and help with the Combined Nomenclature concordance. Vandenbussche thanks ARC, UCL and Excellence Centre LICOS for support. This paper was written while Van Beveren and Vandenbussche were visiting the National Bank of Belgium. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bank of Belgium, the National Bureau of Economics Research or the Centre for Economic Policy Research.
