This paper explores how reductions in tariffs on imported inputs and final goods affect firm productivity by exploiting the special tariff treatment that processing firms apply on imported inputs as opposed to those of non-processing firms. Highly disaggregated Chinese transaction-level trade...

China has experienced dramatic trade liberalization in the late 1990s. In this paper, I investigate the impact of trade liberalization on firm productivity by using both Chinese manufacturing firm-level data and highly disaggregated Chinese import data over 1998-2002. For this purpose, I first...

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of China's processing trade using highly disaggregated 2010 transaction-level data. By highlighting the key role of processing trade in China's foreign trade, we argue that various free-trade zones have served as important instruments in boosting...

This paper investigates the impact of trade liberalization on firm productivity by using both Chinese manufacturing firm-level data and highly disaggregated Chinese import data from 1998-2002. We construct a measure of firms' total factor productivity (TFP) by adopting an augmented Olley-Pakes...

Does entry into the export market enhance firms' productivity? In this paper, we estimate the instantaneous and long-run effects of exporting on the productivity of Chinese manufacturing firms during 2001 and 2007. We argue that pre-export R&D plays a crucial role in generating post-entry...