The role of experience and spillover effects in Dutch exports

Sammanfattning: By studying the export behavior of Dutch firms over the period 2009-2014 we find evidence of experience effects at the extensive margin and intensive margin of exporting when modelled in terms of export value as well as the number of countries exported to in the previous period. Spillover effects are aggregated at sector and province-level and captured in terms of other firms' export value and the number of other firms exporting to the respective geographical zone in the previous period. Sector-specific and sector-province-specific spillover effects generally have a positive impact on exporting when considered in terms of export value, whereas province-specific spillovers generally have a relatively small, negative effect. In addition, we find that both of these spillovers tend to be more positive at the country-level which suggests that at least some spillovers are country-specific. These results are generally robust to the inclusion of so-called extended gravity variables and to changes in the sample, but sector-specific spillovers which turn negative at the intensive margin of exporting when small firms are included in the sample. We interpret this as evidence of competitive pressures at the sector-level from which particularly small firms suffer when exporting.