Spatial Exporters

In this paper, we provide evidence that expanding firms tend to serve new markets which are geographically close and culturally related to their prior export destinations. We quantify the impact of this spatial pattern using a Chinese firm-level data set. To ensure an exogenous set of potential new destinations (25 EU countries, US and Canada) and an exogenous timing of entry, we focus on firms that benefited from the abrupt end of the textile quota restrictions in 2005. Controlling for firm-product and destination specific effects and accounting for possible multiple new export destinations we show that the probability to export to a country increases by 15 to 38 percent for each prior export destination with a geographical or cultural link with this country