Korea Trade Review (무역학회지)

Korea Trade Research Association (한국무역학회)
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Exports and Firm Innovation

수출이 기업혁신에 미치는 영향

  • Yim, Jeong-Dae (BK21 PLUS, School of Business Administration, Kyungpook National University)
  • 임정대 (경북대학교 경영학부 BK21플러스)
  • Received : 2019.05.14
  • Accepted : 2019.06.24
  • Published : 2019.06.30
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Abstract

This study explores the effects of exports on the innovation of Korean firms listed on two Korean stock markets, the Korean Stock Exchange and the Korean Securities Dealers Quotations, between 1999 and 2016. By matching exporting firms to non-exporting ones with propensity score matching, this study accounts for a problem from sample selection bias that may arise from differences in firm-characteristics between the two groups. From the study results, first, both export participation and export volume significantly increase subsequent innovation performance, as measured by the number of patent applications. This result seems to support the "learning by exporting" hypothesis for Korean listed firms. Second, both export participation and export volume narrow innovation scope, proxied as the number of unique International Patent Classification (IPC) codes of the patent applied, the degree to which patents are concentrated in a particular class, and the degree of proximity in the patents. The findings of innovation scope suggest a possible explanation that the learning effect appears in familiar technology fields that firms have previously held, rather than in unfamiliar ones. Third, these results are robust using alternative proxies in the innovation scope, Tobit regressions to consider the non-trivial portion of sample firms with patent applications equal to zeros, and generalized method of moments (GMM) to control for the persistence of innovation measures hearing over years. Finally, the two main results are more pronounced in large firms than in small and medium-sized ones. As for Chaebol firms, however, these results do not appear.

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