A Note on Churning of Exporters and Dynamics of Exports: Evidence from Panel Data for 69 Countries

This short note looks at the link between churning of exporters and dynamics of exports using data from the World Bank Exporter Dynamics Database from 69 countries primarily for the period between 2003 and 2010. In line with Schumpetarian theory of creative destruction we report that a higher rate of turnover in export activity by entry and exit of firms in the year before is positively linked to growth among incumbent exporters in the current year after controlling for unobserved time-invariant country effects and country-invariant time effects. This evidence is consistent with creative destruction.