In the global recession of 2009, exports declined precipitously in many countries. We illustrate with
firm-level data for Belgium and Peru that the decline was very sudden and almost entirely due to
lower export sales by existing exporters. After the recession, exports rebounded almost equally
quickly and we evaluate whether export promotion programs were an effective tool aiding this
recovery. We show that firms taking advantage of this type of support did better during the crisis,
controlling flexibly for systematic differences between supported and control firms. The primary
mechanism we identify is that supported firms are generally more likely to survive on the export
market and, in particular, are more likely to continue exporting to countries hit by the financial crisis
