Does "infant industry" preferential access durably boost export performance? This paper exploits significant trade … Central and Western Africa. Firm-level customs data for selected countries reveal that even in East Africa, the recent export …

anti-export bias and import substitution policies that sought unsuccessfully to develop the local industry. The paper shows … that exporters that import directly intermediate and capital goods have better export outcomes than other exporters … individually larger, with export value extremely concentrated in a few firms. Firm churning rates are disproportionately low and …

reflect physical productivity. Within-firm productivity changes from export entry are computed using a difference …-in-differences matching estimator. The findings show that, over a six-year period, the difference in productivity growth between export … international markets have largely been understated in the export-productivity empirical literature. This difference in productivity …