This paper examines empirically which features of an exporting country's firm-level productivity distribution are related to its aggregate exports. It implicitly tests if the data support the prediction of the
standard trade model with heterogeneous firms la Melitz (2003) that, within a general gravity framework, only the first moment (i.e., the mean) of the firm-level productivity distribution affect aggregate exports. The empirical analysis, which is based on a panel of 17 European countries and 22 manufacturing industries, provides robust support to the alternative view that also higher moments of the productivity distribution matter. In particular, we find that the exporter's multilateral resistance term is positively related not only to the average productivity but also to indicators of rightward asymmetry and, to a lesser extent, dispersion. As export-promoting policies are concerned, these results point to the importance of measures aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of medium-high productive firms and the mechanisms governing allocative efficiency.