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Abstract
This article offers a new reading of
intra-European trade based on recent developments in
new international economics (Melitz, 2003; Chaney,
2008). These models take the heterogeneity of firms
into account and offer a micro-economic analysis of
the process of selection at work for firms entering
markets. An exporting firm has to bear certain
specific costs to break into a market, and only
sufficiently productive firms are able to do so.
Using individual data for French agro-food firms
and the distribution of their exports across European
markets, this article shows that access conditions to
the various European markets are not identical for
French firms: the Belgian market would seem to be a
natural extension of the French market, whereas the
markets of small, distant countries (Austria, Finland
or Sweden) are the least accessible. Econometric
analysis based on analysis both of the firm selection
process and of the value of their exports shows that
the standard geographical variables (distance, country
size) affecting the single European market still play a
major role in the choice of export markets. Results
also reveal that there are still remaining trade costs at
entry to the different European markets; but these
trade frictions don’t matter to all firms in the same
way. The higher the firm experience, the lower the
impact of trade costs.