1. Imported Inputs and Productivity†.
- Author
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Halpern, László, Koren, Miklós, and Szeidl, Adam
- Subjects
IMPORTERS ,INDUSTRIAL productivity ,BUSINESS revenue ,SUBSTITUTION (Economics) - Abstract
We estimate a model of importers in Hungarian microdata and conduct counterfactual analysis to investigate the effect of imported inputs on productivity. We find that importing all input varieties would increase a firm's revenue productivity by 22 percent, about one-half of which is due to imperfect substitution between foreign and domestic inputs. Foreign firms use imports more effectively and pay lower fixed import costs. We attribute one-quarter of Hungarian productivity growth during the 1993-2002 period to imported inputs. Simulations show that the productivity gain from a tariff cut is larger when the economy has many importers and many foreign firms. (JEL D24, F13, F14, L60) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
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