Which U.S. firms have grown in profitability?

China’s admission into the WTO in 2001 heralded a new era of globalization, increasing both import competition in domestic markets and foreign opportunities for US firms. In the aggregate, the average annual profitability of US public firms during the post globalization period (2003-2019) increased by 11.5% of the corresponding pre-globalization period (1984-2002) profitability. This increase in overall aggregate profitability was primarily driven by foreign profitability increasing by 47.4% for firms in the S&P 500 index, which are larger and have more intangible assets created by R&D and SG&A expenditures. In contrast, following globalization, the average aggregate domestic profitability of US firms remained flat, and firms employed more capital to generate sales. Firms with higher intangible assets benefited more from globalization.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Bullipe R. Chintha, Ravi Jagannathan, and Sri S. Sridhard.  When Average is Over was published about eleven years ago, in talks and media appearances I used to commonly draw a distinction between people/firms who are exporting their products — yes economists too — and those who are not.  Which category do you belong to?