Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Success And Failure Of African Exporters, Olivier Cadot, Leonardo Iacovone, Denisse Pierola, Ferdinand Rauch

Olivier Cadot

Using a novel dataset with transaction-level export data from four African countries (Malawi, Mali, Senegal and Tanzania), this paper explores the determinants of success upon entry into export market, defined as survival beyond the first year at the (firm x product x destination) level. We find that the success probability \textit{rises} with the number of same-country competitors exporting the same product to the same destination, suggesting the existence of some cross-firm externalities. We explore several conjectures on the determinants underlying these externalities and provide evidence that these may operate through information spillovers.