The Determinants of Competitive Advantage of Brazilian Exporting Firms

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of competitive advantage of a developing country's exporting firms. It brings at least two innovations. First, we employ an unprecedented database in the analysis of firms' international competitiveness. The database is the result of the compilation of micro-data of firms and their employees, exports, and capital ownership. Second, it investigates the importance of education, technology and scale of production as determinants of international competitiveness of firms from a developing country. The results show that these variables play an important role in explaining the international competitiveness of firms, and the limitation of explanations based solely on allocation and factor intensity as determinants of developing countries exports.

Keywords: Export determinants, education; technology, gains of scale, developing countries, Brazil

JEL Classification: F12, F14