Premium
Synergies and competition: Export survival in Africa and Latin America
Author(s) -
Blanco Luisa,
Mora Jesse,
Olabisi Michael,
Prieger James E.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.1002/soej.12448
Subject(s) - latin americans , diversification (marketing strategy) , competition (biology) , business , product (mathematics) , international trade , international economics , economics , political science , biology , ecology , geometry , mathematics , marketing , law
Using firm‐level export data from six African (Burkina Faso and Senegal) and Latin American (Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay) countries, we examine factors that determine the survival of export flows. We explore the effects on export survival of changes in the number of home‐country exporters serving the same destination, firm‐level export diversification, and country‐level factors. Unlike previous studies, we find that export survival rates decrease with the number of co‐exporters selling the same product to the same country. We also find that the relationship between firm‐level product diversification and export flow survival is hump‐shaped: firms that do not diversify or are highly diversified have lower survival of product‐destination flows. Our findings are robust to various alternative specifications. The main findings hold across both regions and all countries. However, the number of co‐exporters negatively affects survival in Africa more than in Latin America.