Firm heterogeneity, international cooperations and export participation

The paper investigates the relationship between firms’ international cooperation strategies and export decision. It proposes an extension of the recent class of models of firm heterogeneity and trade according to which prospective exporters must engage in a cooperation agreement with a foreign partner in order to favour their market access and distribution activities overseas. The paper analyses the empirical relevance of this model by means of a new survey dataset providing information on the internationalization activities of 814 Norwegian firms in the service sectors for the period 2004-2006. The econometric results point out that international cooperation, both on existing and on innovative products, is indeed an important factor to foster the firms’ decision to enter the export market.