Foreign market experience, learning by hiring and firm export performance

Export experience of managers and other top specialists is among the key drivers of export decisions in firms. We show evidence of this regularity based on employer-employee level data from the manufacturing industry in Estonia. We find that hiring managers and other high-wage employees with prior experience in exporting to a specific geographical region is associated with a higher probability of export entry to that region. Experience matters only if it is region specific and it is especially important for entry to neighbouring markets (the 1st markets of entry). However, there is less evidence of effects on export intensity. Notably, the relationship between export experience and a firm's export entry decisions is stronger if the export experience is recent and if it comes from an exporter that is located nearby in the product space.