Abstract: By making use of the World Bank survey data on Chinese enterprises, this paper tries to investigate the functional mechanism between export and productivity of China’s enterprises in the service industry, and makes a comparative analysis of them with the enterprises in the manufacturing industry. The results indicate that the enterprises in the service industry with higher productivity will take the initiative to select export markets (self-selection effect), after entering the export market, they will further promote their business productivity (export-learning effect). However, no self-selection effect can be found on Chinese manufacturing enterprises, only export-learning effect is found. The conclusions of this paper can provide an empirical foundation for China’s further expansion of opening its service industry.

Key words: export; self-selection effect; export-learning effect; productivity