Innovation, productivité et exportation : Y-a-t-il un effet d'auto-sélection consciente? Une étude empirique sur les PMI de basse-Normandie.

This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between innovation, productivity and exports regarding the SMEs. The main research aim of this study consists in analyzing the hypothesis of firms’ conscious self-selection in the export markets. To measure innovation, we consider the dimensions of technological as well as non technological innovation, as defined by the Oslo Manual (2005). To achieve this, we use the database of SMEs obtained from the survey conducted in the project IDEIS. First, we highlight the existence of export as well as innovation apparent premium, i.e. the advantage of exporting (innovative) firms versus non-exporting (not innovative) ones in terms of productivity. In addition, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the export premium for firms carried out process and organization innovations with the enough exportation. Finally we show the firms’ conscious self-selection in export markets in endogenizing productivity through innovation.