Importing After Exporting

Facundo Albornoz and Ezequiel Garcia Lembergman

No 122, Working Papers from Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia

Abstract: In this paper, we uncover a novel fact about the relationship between exporting and importing. Using a comprehensive database of Argentine firms, we find that exporting to a new destination increases the probability of a firm beginning to import from that market within the lapse of one year. We develop a standard model of import behavior and, by testing its predictions, we rule out productivity as an explanation and argue that export entry reduces import fixed costs. We show that the effect is stronger in distant markets and when importing involves non-homogenous and rarely imported goods. Taken together, our results suggest that firms gain knowledge on -or establish links with- potential suppliers after export entry, which reduces the costs associated with searching for import sources.

Keywords: importing; exporting; trading costs; learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 F12 F14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2015-07, Revised 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc122.pdf First version, 2015 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Importing after exporting (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sad:wpaper:122

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