The French public administration has adopted numerous provisions intended to promote collective export campaigns and the exchange of experience between businesses in close geographical proximity. This extends from exporters’ clubs to the policies of competitiveness clusters, and the underlying idea is that strength in numbers helps to overcome the costs and difficulties involved in exporting. In two studies recently carried out on data from French businesses, we measured the impact of the geographical agglomeration of exporting firms on the efforts of firms in the vicinity to launch an export activity. This impact is heightened where the businesses in question export the same product to the same country and where the market to be won is difficult to access. These effects, which pertain to firms’ environments, are however of secondary importance compared with the characteristics of the firms themselves.

 Mots-clés : AGGLOMERATION | Competitiveness clusters | Individual data of trade | Externalities

 JEL :

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