Commissioned by: Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth
Organised by: Austrian Institute of Economic Research
Using a comprehensive and unique data set of Austrian service exporting firms provided by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank
this paper empirically examines the determinants of service exports at the firm and destination country level. Based on a
Heckman sample selection gravity model, the paper introduces a new approach to decompose expected firm-level services exports
into changes at the intensive and the extensive margins of adjustment as a response to counterfactual changes in exogenous
variables. Specifically, we consider several counterfactual scenarios including the (hypothetical) reduction of trade costs,
changes in destination market size and enhanced firm productivity. Our results suggest that export market growth and a reduction
in distance related trade costs exert the relative strongest impact on the entry into new markets. Policies aiming at promoting
firm productivity also have the potential to broaden the exporter base and play an important role for trade deepening.