Should I Stay or Should I Go? Firm Heterogeneity in the Post-crisis Period

Existing microeconomic research on exporting firms is dominated by empirical findings across time and countries based on two theories of why firms choose to export. One requires firms to be better performers before entry, the other requires there to be improvements in performance as a result of entry. In this paper, we disentangle entry to, and exit from, the overseas market for UK manufacturing firms to better understand the motivations and characteristics underlying both decisions. We explore the extent to which changes in the macroeconomic environment may influence behaviour, following a time of global financial turbulence.