One‐off export events

Abstract

Isolated single‐month, one‐off export transactions (observed once in a 49‐month window) turn out to be the dominant spell length in granular firm–product–destination trade data. Moreover, on average, for an export‐active firm, such one‐off events generate a significant part of foreign sales. These patterns cannot be explained by the lumpiness of trade (e.g., seasonal shipments), nor do they sit well with available trade models. To reconcile theory with the data, we introduce passive (i.e., unsolicited buyer‐side driven) exporting in addition to proactive exporting. Our empirical investigation establishes novel stylized facts on firm and destination characteristics associated with one‐off exporting.

The superstar and the followers: Intra-firm product complementarity in international trade

“…See, for example, Besedeš and Prusa (2006a), Besedeš and Prusa (2006b), Görg, Kneller, and Muraközy (2012), Gullstrand and Persson (2014), Békés and Muraközy (2012) and Hess and Persson (2011). See also Geishecker, Schröder, and Sørensen (2018) who study one-off export events.…”

Excessive entry and exit in export markets

“…One may also be concerned that our results simply reflect the phenomenon of occasional exporting (e.g., Blum, Claro andHorstmann, 2013 andGeishecker et al, 2019). It is possible that our identified new exporters might have already sold in a market in year t − 2 or even before, but somehow stopped exporting to the market for one year in t − 1.…”

Over the ROC methodology: Productivity, economic size and firms’ export thresholds

“…(2) In order to take economic relevance into account, we select only firms that have positive value added, no less than 1 employee, and positive consumption of fixed capital. (3) In line with Geishecker, Schröder, and Sørensen (), we do not consider many of the extremely small and unproductive exporters, including the less relevant “one‐off” exporters, so avoiding that the latter can affect estimates of the export threshold: we exclude firms with less than €1,200 of exported turnover (corresponding to the bottom 5% of firms’ distribution).…”