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Exporting and Technology Adoption in Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2023

Xavier Cirera ,
Diego Comin ,
Marcio Cruz ,
Kyung Min Lee  and
Antonio Martins-Neto
Xavier Cirera*
Affiliation:
The World Bank, Washington, DC
Diego Comin
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
Marcio Cruz
Affiliation:
IFC, World Bank Group, Washington, DC
Kyung Min Lee
Affiliation:
The World Bank, Washington, DC
Antonio Martins-Neto
Affiliation:
The World Bank, Washington, DC
*
Corresponding author: Xavier Cirera, Email: xcirera@worldbank.org
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Abstract

There is limited evidence about the role that participating in international trade has on the diffusion of technologies. This paper analyzes the impact of exporting on firms’ adoption of technologies that are more sophisticated, using a novel dataset, the Firm-level Adoption of Technology (FAT) survey, that includes more than 1,500 firms from Brazil. The survey provides detailed information about the use of more than 300 technologies, combined with data from Brazil's census of formal workers (RAIS) and Brazil’s exports data from the Ministry of Trade. To address some critical endogeneity concerns, we apply a difference-in-differences estimation with multiple periods to examine the effects of entering export markets on technology adoption. We find that exporting has positive effects on firms’ likelihood of adopting advanced technologies in business functions related with business administration, production planning, supply chain management, and quality control, which are important to manage tasks associated to export activities.

Keywords

D2E23L23O10O40Technologyinternational tradeadoptiondiffusion
Type
Original Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 22 , Special Issue 3-4: Double Special Issue: Trade Policy, Openness, and Development in Honour of L. Alan Winters , October 2023 , pp. 334 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The World Trade Organization

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