Regional trade in South America since independence has long been much smaller than would be expected if geography were the only constraint on trade. Several potential explanations exist: low technological and demand complementarities; low productivity; high natural and policy barriers to trade....

Regional trade in South America since independence has long been much smaller than would be expected if geography were the only constraint on trade. Several potential explanations exist: low technological and demand complementarities; low productivity; high natural and policy barriers to trade....

Although there is much empirical evidence to show that good firms become exporters, the literature is less lucid regarding the benefits of exporting. This paper disentangles the direction of the causality to show that exporting improves firm performance. It uses Indian plant-level data (over...