Export Pioneers in Latin America analyzes a series of case studies of successful new export activities throughout the region to learn how pioneers jump-start a virtuous process leading to economic transformation. The cases of blueberries in Argentina, avocados in Mexico, and aircraft in Brazil...

How effective are export promotion activities in developing countries? What are the channels through which export promotion affects firms' exports, the intensive margin or the extensive margin? Empirical evidence in this respect is scarce. We aim at filling this gap in the literature by...

Despite the growing political priority given to making trade work for the majority in Latin America, a notable gap exists in the knowledge about the distributive impacts of trade integration. This study attempts to fill this gap: it surveys the most recent contributions to the mainstream trade...

Several countries have implemented programs to support their firms¿ internationalization efforts. Their impacts are likely to be heterogeneous over firm size categories because these programs are primarily intended and expected to benefit smaller companies. Whether this is or not the case is...

Export promotion agencies provide exporters with a broad range of services, going from counseling to sponsoring their participation in international trade missions and fairs. These services may have heterogeneous effects and thus contribute differently to achieve the goals of these...

This study is an effort to identify the process by which firms venture into GVCs and the obstacles faced by firms once they have been immersed in it. We have focused on two particular GVCs: the aerospace GVC and the software and IT services GVC. Through the case studies, we analyzed the nature...

Do all exporters benefit the same from export promotion programs? Surprisingly, not matter how obvious this question may a priori be when thinking of the effectiveness of these programs there is virtually no empirical evidence on how they affect export performance in different parts of the...

Information problems involved in trading differentiated goods are a priori acuter than those associated with trading more homogeneous products. The impact of export promotion activities intending to address these problems can be therefore expected to differ across goods with different degree of...

Guatemala podría estar aprovechando mejor el comercio exterior como factor de crecimiento económico. En la actualidad, el comercio tiene una importancia relativamente pequeña en la economía: el coeficiente de apertura -la suma de las exportaciones e importaciones de bienes y servicios...

This study sheds light on how Costa Rica's insertion in global value chains occurs by examining governance patterns, the type of activities involved, and the level of underlying innovation in the selected value chain. The paper describes in detail two case studies of electronic-related companies...