Trade Frictions and Market Access of Developing Countries: A Product-level Empirical Investigation

This paper examines the effects of trade frictions on export market access at the product level and the role these frictions have on the ability of developing countries to access world markets. We find distance and trade frictions are determinants of the probability of success in entering foreign markets. We examine whether there are any systematic biases from these frictions that further limit market access for exporters from developing countries. Our results suggest that developing countries are not differentially impacted by these factors.