abstract

We document considerable heterogeneity among Brazilian exporters. Recent starters or switchers differ substantively from continuing exporters in size and export-market penetration. Surprisingly, this heterogeneity is not reflected in the workforce composition regarding observed worker skills or occupations. Using linked employer-employee data, we turn to a typically unknown worker characteristic: a worker's prior experience at other exporters. We show that anticipated export status, predicted with destination-country trade instruments, leads firms to prepare their workforce by hiring workers from other exporters, and that hiring former exporter workers predicts both a wider reach of destinations and a deeper penetration of destinations. This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that exporters actively prepare for anticipated export-market access and with the idea that few key workers may determine a firm's export success.

keywords: International trade; exporter behavior; trade and labor market interactions; Brazil

jel: F12, F14, F16

background

• supporting files
  • additional tables and graphs [pdf 198k]
  • converter sitc2subsibge [csv 7k] [stata9 49k] (stata9 file contains labels longer than 80 characters)