How firms export: direct and indirect exporting, intermediaries, and hybrid firms

Some firms export their own products directly, others rely on intermediary firms to export on their behalf, and still others both export their own products and intermediate exports for other producers. To explain this heterogeneity, we develop a model in which firms differ along two dimensions: manufacturing capability and commercial capability. Manufacturing capability lowers the marginal cost of producing a variety, whereas commercial capability lowers the variable cost of reaching foreign customers. Different combinations of these capabilities generate the different types of firms observed in export markets: direct exporters, indirect exporters, pure intermediaries, and hybrid firms. The model predicts that commercially capable intermediaries are matched with more manufacturing-capable producers, and that more commercially capable intermediaries export a broader set of varieties. We provide suggestive evidence for these predictions using Spanish firm-level export data.