Export Concentration and Competition: Does the Firms Type Matter?

Trade liberalization enhances the competition in the market as it increases the quality and the quantity of the products available to domestic buyers. This paper contributes to the literature in two ways. First, using Egyptian firm level data, it attempts to examine how export market concentration is affected by competition at the destination market and how firms adjust their product scope following periods of trade openness. Second, we disentangle this effect by the size of exporter to see how small and large firms adjust their trade in response to a fiercer competition. Our findings show that the market potential exerts a positive and significant impact on the concentration index showing that tougher competition in an export market induces a firm to skew its export sales towards its best performing products. Market potential does matter more for small exporters rather than large ones as it helps them become more specialized.