Sector productivity and geographical diversification as export enhancing factors: the case of Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: André, Nuno Miguel Queimado
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/52160
• topic: Exporting; Productivity; Geographical diversification; portugal; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

An investigation of the relationship between productivity growth and exporting is vital to understand whether the policies of productivity-enhancing or of export-promotion are more adequate for economic progress. This thesis considers the relationship between exporting and productivity for thirty-two economic activities, in Portugal, from 2005 to 2017. I find that economic activities with high productivity levels are systematically likelier to register higher export levels than less productive ones. This result corroborates the self-selection theory. Furthermore, I test for the effect of geographical diversification on the volume of exports, and the presence of diminishing returns in this association. For both cases I find significant results, suggesting that economic activities enlisting more export destinations tend to possess higher export volumes, but also that after a certain threshold the negative effects of geographical diversification offset the associated positive benefits.