What determines the export performance? A comparative analysis at the world level

We use constant market share (CMS) analysis to measure the variations in the market share of 82 of the world’s principal exporting countries between 1995/97 and 2005/07. The results of this analysis serve to stress the importance of competitiveness in explaining export performance. Furthermore, the existence is observed of a spatial tendency, reflected in the fact that countries that are geographically close to each other tend to display a similar behavior with regard to market share evolution and the components into which the variation is broken down.