Ownership and Export Characteristics of Irish Manufacturing Performance

Recent research has sought to explore whether exporting enterprises have superior performance characteristics relative to non-exporters, and whether such superiority is associated with performance pre- and/or post- exporting. This paper extends existing research to take account of enterprise ownership and export market destination. It explores these issues using micro data on Irish manufacturing between 1991 and 1998, a time period during which Ireland experienced rapid export-driven growth. The study provides further evidence of the superior characteristics of exporters relative to nonexporters and supports the self-selection hypothesis that superior enterprises are more likely to export. However, no evidence is found for learning-by-exporting effects in enterprises. We find export destination matters: the performance characteristics of enterprises that export globally differ from those that export locally.