New exports from emerging markets: Do followers benefit from pioneers? ¬リニ

a r t i c l e i n f o We study the micro dynamics of new exports from a country. The modern international trade workhorse models (e.g. Melitz, 2003) assume heterogeneous productivity and, implicitly, predict that the ex-post largest exporters in a new product would be the pioneers, since they can pay back exploration costs. However, using detailed data on the early dynamics of new exports in Chile (1990–2007) we show that, on average, pioneers export less than comparable followers in the same new product. Moreover, followers are 40% more likely to enter a product if a pioneer survives more than one year exporting. These facts are consistent with pioneer-to-follower spillovers, or at least with stories in which the cost of entering early is disproportionally higher for larger exporters. Otherwise they would enter first. Firms better at " exploration " could be worse at " exploitation " (scale-up) in a new export product. This phenomenon is scarce, though, since in most new products pioneers are not followed, even if they survive. Pioneer firms are the first to export a new product from a country. A fraction of these new exported products also have follower firms, which start exporting after the pioneers in those same products. We try to understand if pioneers are different from followers. Are pioneer firms the first at entering into a new export product because they will export more, so they can more easily pay back any exploration costs? Or is it that pioneers enter earlier because they have lower exploration costs in the product, so it is cheaper for them to try new products? These micro-level questions can have important implications for the way countries diversify their aggregate export baskets and explore their dynamic comparative advantages (e. The dominant paradigm today in international economics is model-ing firms with heterogeneous productivity. Applying its standard logic to one particular new product, would predict that firms that end up exporting the most of a particular new product should be the pioneers (e.g. Melitz (2003) and extensions, such as Arkolakis (2010); Eckel and Neary (2010) for multiproduct firms). By having larger expected profits these firms should be willing to pay the sunk cost of exporting before other firms with lower expected revenue in the product. In this empirical paper we find, however, that in the early stages of new exports the largest exporters in a product do not …