  We propose a novel measure to investigate firms' product specialisation:
product coreness, that captures the centrality of exported products within the
firm's export basket. We study product coreness using firm-product level data
between 2018 and 2020 for Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Three main findings
emerge from our analysis. First, the composition of firms' export baskets
changes relatively little from one year to the other, and products far from the
firm's core competencies, with low coreness, are more likely to be dropped.
Second, higher coreness is associated with larger export flows at the firm
level. Third, such firm-level patterns also have implications at the aggregate
level: products that are, on average, exported with higher coreness have higher
export flows at the country level, which holds across all levels of product
complexity. Therefore, the paper shows that how closely a product fits within a
firm's capabilities is important for economic performance at both the firm and
country level. We explore these issues within an econometric framework, finding
robust evidence both across our three countries and for each country
separately.
