Abstract

With cognizance to firms’ heterogeneity in an industry, this paper employs the most recent, unpublished and large-scale firm-level data of 14,687 manufacturing firms in Malaysia in 2015 to revisit the drivers of manufacturing exports. Applying the OLS and logistic regressions, we observed a strong positive relationship between a firm’s labor productivity and export intensity. Firms’ foreign ownership, size and age are positively connected to their export competitiveness. The incorporation of location variables into the regression reveals that firms in the Southern peninsula of Malaysia (e.g., Johor) have a positive effect and demonstrate the highest probability to engage in export activities. Our study is informative to trade policymakers on the key drivers of manufacturing exports, providing references to not only Malaysia, but other economies in Eastern Asia and developing nations.

摘要

鉴于企业在行业中的异质性，本文采用 2015 年马来西亚 14,687 家制造企业的最新、未发表和大规模的企业层面数据，重新审视制造业出口的驱动因素。应用 OLS 和逻辑回归，我们观察到公司的劳动生产率和出口强度之间存在很强的正相关关系。公司的外资所有权、规模和年龄与其出口竞争力呈正相关。将位置变量纳入回归表明，马来西亚南部半岛（例如，柔佛）的公司具有积极影响，并证明从事出口活动的可能性最高。我们的研究为贸易政策制定者提供有关制造业出口主要驱动力的信息，不仅为马来西亚提供参考，