Description

Using plant-level data from Chile’s manuf acturing sector for the period 1990-2000, this paper examines the effect of financial development on the probability of exporting at the plant level, with a special focus on the heter ogeneous responses of plants with different characteristics. The main results are that an improvement in financial development increases the probability of exporting of more productive plan ts and those with foreign ownership operating in manufact uring sectors that are more dependent on external finance. Our estimates also indicate th at financial development does not appear to improve the probability of exporting for relatively smaller and younger plants. This result suggests that, at least for the case of expor ting in Chile, smaller and younger plants are not necessarily more likely to benefit from improvements in access to credit than la rger and older ones.