Juan Carlos Hallak

Publications (3)0 Total impact

• Source

  Available from: uni-muenchen.de

  Article: Productivity, quality and exporting behavior under minimum quality constraints

  Juan Carlos Hallak, Jagadeesh Sivadasan
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: We develop a model of international trade with two sources of firm heterogeneity: "productivity" and "caliber". Productivity is modeled as is standard in the literature. Caliber is the ability to produce quality using few fixed inputs. While there is no quality restriction to sell domestically, exporting requires the attainment of minimum quality levels. Compared to single-attribute models of firm heterogeneity emphasizing either productivity or the ability to produce quality, our model provides a more nuanced characterization of firms' export behavior. In particular, it explains the empirical fact that firm size is not monotonically related with export status; there are small firms that export while there are large firms that only operate in the domestic market. The model also delivers novel testable predictions. Conditional on size, exporters sell products of higher quality and at higher prices, they pay higher wages and use capital more intensively. We test these predictions using data on manufacturing establishments in India, the U.S., Chile, and Colombia. The empirical findings confirm the theoretical predictions.
  University Library of Munich, Germany, MPRA Paper. 01/2008;
• Source

  Available from: berkeley.edu

  Article: Productivity, quality and exporting behavior under minimum quality requirements

  Juan Carlos Hallak, Jagadeesh Sivadasan
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: We develop a model of industry equilibrium with heterogeneous firms that explicitly incor-porates quality and productivity in one framework. In our model, productivity reduces marginal costs, whereas quality shifts out demand and increases marginal and fixed costs. We propose that to export firms need to cross a threshold quality level. We examine exporting behavior of manufacturing establishments in Chile, Colombia and India and find that our model's predic-tions are consistent with a number of regularities in the data relating exporting status to size, capital intensity, skill intensity and output prices.
  04/2006;
• Source

  Available from: SSRN

  Article: Firms’ Exporting Behavior under Quality Constraints

  Juan Carlos Hallak, Jagadeesh Sivadasan
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: We develop a model of international trade with export quality requirements and two dimensions of firm heterogeneity. In addition to "productivity", firms are also heterogeneous in their "caliber" — the ability to produce quality using fewer fixed inputs. Compared to single-attribute models of firm heterogeneity emphasizing either productivity or the ability to produce quality, our model provides a more nuanced characterization of firms’ exporting behavior. In particular, it explains the empirical fact that firm size is not monotonically related with export status: there are small firms that export and large firms that only operate in the domestic market. The model also delivers novel testable predictions. Conditional on size, exporters are predicted to sell products of higher quality and at higher prices, pay higher wages and use capital more intensively. These predictions, although apparently intuitive, cannot be derived from single-attribute models of firm heterogeneity as they imply no variation in export status after size is controlled for. We find strong support for the predictions of our model in manufacturing establishment datasets for India, the U.S., Chile, and Colombia. http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64437/1/ipc-88-hallak-sivadasan-firm-exporting-behavior-quality-constraints.pdf