Multilateral Export Decompositions

We analyze exports along five margins to observe the changes of newly exported products, products removed from the export market, and continuously traded products to new, old, and exited destinations on export growth. We find export shares differ between developing and developed countries: 1) entering and exiting products are an important source of export value, but more so for developing than developed countries, 2) that continuously exported products to new destinations are a more important source of export value for developing than developed countries, 3) that though the removal of exiting products has a large impact on export value, the removal of products from one destination that continue to be exported elsewhere results in little loss to total export value, and 4) that larger and richer exporting countries have less opportunity to increase exports from new destinations than smaller and poorer exporting countries. Understanding the change in these margins across different types of countries may be important for formulating trade agreements and targeting of new trade partners. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013