Estimating Export-productivity Cutoff Contours with Profit Data: A Novel Threshold Estimation Approach
Abstract
This paper develops a novel method to estimate firm-specific market-entry thresholds in international economics, allowing fixed costs to vary across firms alongside productivity. Our framework models market entry as an interaction between productivity and observable fixed-cost measures, extending traditional single-threshold models to ones with set-valued thresholds. Applying this approach to Chinese firm data, we estimate export-market entry thresholds as functions of domestic sales and surrogate variables for fixed costs. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity and threshold contours, challenging conventional single-threshold-point assumptions. These findings offer new insights into firm behavior and provide a foundation for further theoretical and empirical advancements in trade research.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2502.03406,
title = {Estimating Export-productivity Cutoff Contours with Profit Data: A Novel Threshold Estimation Approach},
author = {Peter H. Egger and Yulong Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.03406},
year = {2026}
}