Firms need to incur substantial sunk costs to break in foreign markets, yet may give up exporting shortly after their first experience, which typically involves very small sales. Conversely, other new exporters shoot up their foreign sales and expand to new destinations. We investigate a simple...

Firms need to incur substantial sunk costs to break in foreign markets, yet many give up exporting shortly after their first experience, which typically involves very small sales. Conversely, other new exporters shoot up their foreign sales and expand to new destinations. We investigate a simple...

Many new exporters give up exporting very shortly, despite substantial entry costs; others shoot up foreign sales and expand to new destinations. We develop a model based on experimentation to rationalize these and other dynamic patterns of exporting firms. We posit that individual export...

Firms need to incur substantial sunk costs to break in foreign markets, yet many give up exporting shortly after their first experience, which typically involves very small sales. Conversely, other new exporters shoot up their foreign sales and expand to new destinations. We investigate a simple...