New exports from emerging markets: Do followers benefit from pioneers?

We study the micro dynamics of new exports from a country. The modern international trade workhorse models (e.g. Melitz, 2003) assume heterogeneous productivity and, implicitly, predict that the ex-post largest exporters in a new product would be the pioneers, since they can pay back exploration costs. However, using detailed data on the early dynamics of new exports in Chile (1990–2007) we show that, on average, pioneers export less than...