Effect of public promotion policies on the growth of the Chilean export sector

During the last decade, the good performance of the export sector has been one of the main sources of the rapid economic growth in the Chilean economy. This paper evaluates the impact of public promotion policies on the Chilean export performance. Using plant level data, the econometric evidence shows that this kind of policies has generated a significant and direct increase on markets and indirectly on export values. However, there is no evidence about any positive impact on the number of exported products by the firms. In addition, this paper indentifies differents results related to the impact of the export promotion instruments. Only some of them are effective for opening new markets and increasing exports.