Agglomeration and the Export Decision of French Firms

This paper asks whether export spillovers influence the export behavior of French manufacturers. I use a database containing export flows by firm and importing country between 1986 and 1992. The decision to start exporting to a particular country is estimated using a logit model, controlling for the specific characteristics of firms, locations, countries and years. The export spillovers identified are industry- and/or destination-specific, and are computed at a very disaggregated geographical level. The results indicate that the pool of local exporters positively affects the decision to start exporting to a country. These effects are clearly destination-specific, and are larger for firms that export to remote markets