firm survival, resource-based theory, hazard rates, manufacturing, technological opportunity., C41, L1, L26, L60,

This paper analyses the factors determining Spanish manufacturing firms’ survival–and exit. The data are drawn from the survey Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales for the period 1990–1999. The methodology includes both non-parametric techniques and the estimation of a Cox proportional hazards model (CPHM). Our results suggest that the probability of exit is higher for small firms and also for young and mature firms. Furthermore, exporting firms and firms performing R&D activities enjoy better survival prospects. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004Exit, survival analysis,

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This article uses survival analysis to investigate the duration of Spanish firms' trade relationships by destination over 1997–2006. Whereas firm export status is highly persistent, firms' destination portfolio is very dynamic: a typical firm‐country exporting relationship has a median duration of 2 years. Yet, if a firm manages to export to a country beyond 2 years the risk of exiting that market sharply falls afterwards. The results indicate that not only firm heterogeneity but also destination heterogeneity are crucial to explain survival in export markets. In particular, country (political) risk heavily shapes the effect of firm, product, and other destination characteristics on the length of trade relationships. Whereas firm productivity, comparative advantage, partners' GDP, and proximity enhance duration of trade with low‐risk countries, they have no effect on trade survival with high‐risk countries. On the contrary, information spillovers are particularly relevant to enhance survival of trade relationships with high‐risk countries. (JEL C41, F10, F14)

This paper contributes to fill the gap between the literature on the determinants of firm survival and the empirical works on the industry life cycle (ILC). Using a representative sample of Spanish firms with ten or more employees over the period 1993-2009, the role played by firm age and productivity in firm survival is empirically analyzed across three stages of the life cycle of forty-seven 3-digit manufacturing sectors. In the "early" stage of the ILC, firm age is negatively correlated with hazard rates while firm productivity is not. Firm productivity is associated with lower hazard in the "mature" stage of the ILC, when competition is primarily efficiency-driven, while firm age does not play a significant role for firm survival. In the "intermediate" stage both age and productivity play a role in reducing firms' hazard rates.

Exit, Liquidation, Acquisition, Competing-risks hazards model, L1, C41, L60,

The trade literature has long discussed the existence of some benefits attributed to exporting (learning-by-exporting), among others, the improvement in survival chances. This paper examines whether exporting SMEs enjoy better survival prospects than non-exporting SMEs. We investigate the determinants of survival of exporting and non-exporting SMEs and explore whether the exporting behaviour plays a significant role in explaining their probability of exit. For this purpose, we estimate discrete time proportional hazard models that account for unobserved individual heterogeneity. The dataset is a sample of Spanish manufacturing SMEs drawn from the Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales (ESEE) for 1990-2002. After controlling for firm, industry and economy characteristics, we find evidence supporting the existence of a sizeable ''surviving-by-exporting'' effect. That is, exporting SMEs face a significantly lower probability of failure than non-exporters.

This paper re-examines the effect of the GATT/WTO on trade using recent econometric developments that allow us estimating structural gravity equations with the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimator on a large dataset that requires computing high-dimensional fixed effects. By doing so, we overcome computational limitations that are present in previous studies. In line with Rose's (Am Econ Rev 94: [98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114] 2004) seminal work, we find that, unlike regional trade agreements and currency unions, the GATT/WTO accession has not generated positive trade effects. This result is robust to the use of alternative measures of trade flows, across periods and country groups, to changes in the periodicity of the data, when taking into account the GATT/WTO accession dynamics, to controlling for the participation of only one country of the dyad in GATT/WTO, to the consideration of non-member participants, and to the use of alternative datasets. Notwithstanding, we also find that PPML results are sensitive to the definition of the dependent variable.