Social Influence and the Creation of New Markets for Information Goods : A Dynamic Network Perspective

Given that tastes differ in different markets, how do producers in one market begin to export to other markets? Is it better to be insulated from or influenced by products from outside? I seek an answer to this question by modeling international trade in music recordings as a macroscopic communication network and study its evolution between 1976 and 2006. I find that being influenced by imports does increase the probability of successfully developing new export markets, but only to other countries that have also been influenced by the same imports. I argue that selling in a market changes what is valued in that market, and that new market development can be seen as a consequence of having social influences in common