The role of firm‐to‐firm relationships in exporter dynamics

This paper investigates the role of firm‐to‐firm relationships in export market dynamics, documenting the following stylized facts for French exporters. First, exporters grow in a foreign market by expanding their customer base; the average French exporter doubles its number of buyers after 8 years. Second, sales to existing customers remain the predominant source of growth in a foreign market, with long‐lasting relationships contributing to most export values. Third, as a mechanism driving firms' growth in a relationship, prices fall as a relationship ages. Fourth, I exploit the Brexit referendum as a quasi‐natural experiment to examine how firm‐to‐firm relationships adjust in response to changes in market access. I find that French exporters with long‐lasting relationships in the UK are less affected by the referendum shock and exhibit higher exchange rate pass‐through. Overall, these findings indicate that long‐lasting relationships represent a crucial margin for export market growth and in shielding exporters from changing market conditions.