Firm Size Dynamics of Industries: Stochastic Growth Processes, Large Fluctuations, and the Population of Firms as a Complex System

摘要

With the emergence of various longitudinal data sources for firms, studies on business size distributions, business turnover, and business growth/decline have had a resurgence among the academic community. This study was conducted to better understand the dynamic nature of the growth and decline of firms in various size classes and industries. Firm growth rates do not fit the often assumed normal distribution. As a result, there are more slow-growing firms, more fast-growing firms, and fewer medium-growing firms than are generally modeled by economists. This finding held for all industries analyzed and growth rates were unrelated to establishment size.