¿Aprenden las empresas españolas de las empresas localizadas a su alrededor?

Resumen

Policy makers engage sometimes in expensive cluster policies with the belief that the gains in terms of productivity, production and employment growth will offset the costs. They are also concerned by increasing exports and foreign direct investment to equilibrate their external balance and increase their gross domestic product. Actually, studies based on firm-level datasets tend to show that firms that become exporters are the most productive one, firms that import tend to be also more productive and agglomeration not always guarantees better productivity. However the interaction between agglomeration, internationalisation and productivity of firms has not been fully investigated. In the present study, we compare the impact of the concentration of production, employment, export and import on the total factor productivity of Spanish firms. To this aim, we use a modified version of the Olley and Pakes method (1996) that allows us to control for possible endogeneity bias that emerges from the fact that firms may internalise the potential gains they could obtain from a localisation. Our results confirm that benefits to be obtained from localisation are, at least in part, internalised by the firm when choosing its location. But apart from these expected gains, there are some additional gains to obtain when located nearby other firms. At the regional level, increasing production of determined industry, and exports and imports in general, would increase the total factor productivity of firms located in this region. Though, some congestion economies could occur at the industry level. Small plants are the firms that benefit more from the experience of other firms in the vicinity, especially from the one of exporters. It seems that regions that export a lot, but overall those that import a lot will obtain considerable productivity gains. Then, a cheap and effective policy could consist in reducing the formal and informal barriers that firms face when exporting or importing. In the region of Andalusia, where firms are in general smaller and less internationalised than the average, the policy should focus in reducing export and imports costs for firms to promote the apparition of new traders. In Andalusia, there are industries in which firms are larger, more export-oriented and have higher productivity than the average. Promoting localisation nearby these good firms of small firms operating in these industries and in the others would contribute to develop their managerial capacities. Our results show that large firms and traders would also benefit from an increase in the production and internationalisation of other firms, in particular those of the same industry. Then, to collaborate and to exchange information should be fruitful for both type of firms.