How firms export: product assignment, export platforms, and hybrid firms

Ra\'ul M\'inguez and Asier Minondo ()

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Abstract: Firms differ in manufacturing and foreign commercialization capabilities. We study how these differences organize exporting through multi-product export platforms. Products and increasingly costly platform slots form a transferable-utility assignment market. Complementarity between manufacturing and commercial capability generates positive assortative matching, while convex organizational costs determine platform scope. The equilibrium endogenously generates the four exporter types observed in firm-level trade data: direct exporters, indirect exporters, pure intermediaries, and hybrid firms. Lower contracting costs expand intermediated trade, stronger scope diseconomies fragment portfolios, and trade liberalization improves match quality. Intermediation can raise home national income by reallocating commercial capability across products.

Date: 2026-06, Revised 2026-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iaf and nep-int
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