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Economic analysis of adjustment to globalisation has shifted from countries and industries to firms and plants. One particularly fruitful area for research has been aspects of entry to, participation in and exit from export markets. This paper contributes to that literature. Its focus is the exporting behaviour of manufacturing firms in the United Kingdom. To isolate the impact of participation in export markets we use nearest neighbour matching. For 1988–2002, we find evidence that spillovers associated with agglomeration can raise the probability of export market entry and once entry has occurred there may be additional productivity benefits. Survival is driven partly by size and total factor productivity and partly by industry characteristics.