The nature of export spillovers on trade: an analysis at NUTS 3 level in Italy

Using the region as unit of analysis, this article examines the existence of destination, industry and region-specific export spillovers on both the decision of export and subsequent flow of trade between 2004 and 2008, according to data on Italian nomenclature of units for territorial statistics 3 regions. We identify the source and quantify the effect of spillovers generated by other firms with a selection-bias corrected panel datamodel. Results show evidence of spillovers on both extensive (i.e. decision to start exporting) and intensive (i.e., export flow) margins of trade.