Products or markets: What type of experience matters for export survival?

Previous research has generally shown that increased export experience is positively correlated with the subsequent survival of newly launched export flows by a firm. In this paper, we find that there are important differences in the relationship between firm experience and export survival depending on the source of the experience. Specifically, experience built up by a firm from previously exporting a particular product before launching it in a new market is positively associated with the survival of a new product-market flow. In contrast, experience within a market prior to adding a new product has a mainly negative correlation with the survival probability of the new product-market export flow. This shows that taking a successful product to new markets is more likely to succeed than expanding product range within a market. We further find evidence suggestive of firms bringing their most established products to a wider range of markets while launching new product lines in their more established markets.