Does Experience Facilitate Entry into New Export Destinations? Lili Wang, Yong Zhao* Abstract Using a large panel dataset that covers 116 countries and 5013 products over the period 1998–2010, this study evaluates the effects of export experience on the geographic expansion of China’s exports. The results suggest that past export experience in geographically close and culturally similar markets plays a crucial role in facilitating new market entry, and the positive spillover effects are more pronounced for incumbent and successful products. The results also indicate that spillovers from export experience are market-specific and product-specific, and they are limited to within the same product class and the same market, with little cross-group effects. Finally, there is no strong evidence that export experience is more important for differentiated products than for homogeneous products, and the positive spillover effects are remarkable for both categories of products. Key words: experience, export costs, geographic expansion
JEL codes: F10, F13, F14