Information on imports and exports is not available at the firm level. However,
the US Department of Commerce compiles annual import and export shares at the
industry level, for both the two and four-digit SIC classification, for the main US
manufacturing industries.14 In our tests, we match firms with their industry import
(export) share at the four-digit SIC where available, otherwise at the two-digit.15
Regression 1 in Table 6, presents the results of the first-stage binomial probit
model. Our findings are similar to those obtained by Geczy et al. (1997): firm size,
R&D expenditures, and controls for exposure (foreign income and trade) are
important determinants in a firm’s decision to use foreign currency derivatives.