High-End Variety Exporters Defying Distance : Micro Facts and Macroeconomic Implications

We develop a new methodology to identify high-end variety exporters in French fi rm level data. We show that they do not export to many more countries, but they export to more distant ones. This comes with a greater geographic diversi cation of their aggregate exports. In contrast to low-end export(er)s, we find that distance has almost no eff ect on high-end variety export(er)s. We also show that high-end export(er)s are more sensitive to the average income of the destination country. Because of this di erent sensitivity to gravity variables at the micro-level, specializing in the production of high-end varieties has two macroeconomic implications for countries. First, the sources of a country's aggregate exports volatility are modi ed. The higher sensitivity to per capita income increases the sensitivity of high-end variety exports to destination-speci c demand shocks, and thus their volatility on a given market. However, their lower sensitivity to distance allows for a greater geographic diversi cation of their exports, which in turn reduces aggregate volatility through a portfolio e ect. Second, the lower sensitivity to distance allows highend varieties to bene t more from demand growth, especially when it arises in distant markets.