Green tangible investment strategies and export performance: A firm-level investigation

In this paper we empirically investigate the relationship between investments in environmentally oriented equipment and firms' export performance. We adopt a two-stage model where we first estimate the impact of green tangible investment strategies (GTIS) on the level of productive efficiency ( and then assess whether induced productivity influences the propensity and the intensity of exports. We rely on a rich firm-level dataset on Italian manufacturing. Our results show that firms with higher productivity, induced among other factors by green investments combining environmental and increased revenue objectives, achieve a higher export performance. In particular, GTIS-enhanced TFP affects the probability of exporting in foreign markets characterized by more stringent environmental regulation. Our evidence supports a 'green-based' firm heterogeneity argument. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.