Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Box-Cox quantile regression and the distribution of firm sizes

Contents:

Author Info

  • Jose A. F. Machado

    (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Travessa Estev�o Pinto, 1099-032 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Jose Mata

    (Instituto Superior Tecnico and CEPR, Portugal)

Abstract

Using the Box-Cox quantile regression model, we analyse the size distribution of firms in Portuguese manufacturing during the 1980s. Specifically, we estimate the effect of selected industry attributes on the location, scale, skewness and kurtosis of the conditional size distributions of firms. We find that industry attributes affect the size of firms in the same direction across the distribution, but the effects of these variables are typically much greater at the largest quantiles. Over time the distribution shifted towards smaller firms, due mainly to the way the economy responds to industry characteristics rather than to changes of the level of these characteristics. The prediction of lognormality, implied by Gibrat's Law, is soundly rejected by the observed distribution of firm sizes. However, we found that, at least in 1983, lognormality is a reasonable description of the conditional size distribution. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://qed.econ.queensu.ca:80/jae/2000-v15.3/
File Function: Supporting data files and programs
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Journal of Applied Econometrics.

Volume (Year): 15 (2000)
Issue (Month): 3 ()
Pages: 253-274

as in new window
Handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:15:y:2000:i:3:p:253-274

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0883-7252/

Order Information:
Email:
Web: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jcatalog/subscribe.jsp?issn=0883-7252

Related research

Keywords:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Mills, David E & Schumann, Laurence, 1985. "Industry Structure with Fluctuating Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 758-67, September.
  2. repec:cup:etheor:v:11:y:1995:i:1:p:105-21 is not listed on IDEAS
  3. Lu�s M B Cabral & Jos� Mata, 2003. "On the Evolution of the Firm Size Distribution: Facts and Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1075-1090, September.
  4. Mata, Jose & Machado, Jose A. F., 1996. "Firm start-up size: A conditional quantile approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1305-1323, June.
  5. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
  6. Schmalensee, Richard., 1987. "Inter-industry studies of structure and performance," Working papers 1874-87., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
  7. Hahn, Jinyong, 1995. "Bootstrapping Quantile Regression Estimators," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(01), pages 105-121, February.
  8. Fitzenberger, Bernd, 1998. "The moving blocks bootstrap and robust inference for linear least squares and quantile regressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 235-287, February.
  9. Steven J. Davis & John C. Haltiwanger & Scott Schuh, 1998. "Job Creation and Destruction," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262540932.
  10. Koenker, Roger & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1982. "Robust Tests for Heteroscedasticity Based on Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 43-61, January.
  11. Evans, David S, 1987. "Tests of Alternative Theories of Firm Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(4), pages 657-74, August.
  12. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M, 1992. "Some Alternatives to the Box-Cox Regression Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 33(4), pages 935-55, November.
  13. Gort, Michael & Klepper, Steven, 1982. "Time Paths in the Diffusion of Product Innovations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(367), pages 630-53, September.
  14. White, Lawrence J, 1982. "The Determinants of the Relative Importance of Small Business," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(1), pages 42-49, February.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Muriel Meunier, 2006. "Fonctions de production éducationnelle: le cas de la Suisse," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 142(IV), pages 579–615, December.
  2. Audretsch, D.B. & Klomp, L. & Thurik, A.R., 2002. "Gibrat's Law: are the services different?," Research Paper ERS-2002-04-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni.
  3. Lüdemann, Elke & Wilke, Ralf A. & Zhang, Xuan, 2004. "Censored Quantile Regressions and the Length of Unemployment Periods in West Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 04-57, ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research.
  4. Ana Sofia Domingues Rodrigues & Christopher A. Laincz, 2004. "Understanding the Variations in Gibrat's Law with a Markov-Perfect Dynamic Industry Model," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 173, Society for Computational Economics.
  5. Francesca Lotti & Enrico Santarelli, 2001. "Industry Dynamics and the Distribution of Firm Sizes: A Non-Parametric Approach," LEM Papers Series 2001/14, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
  6. Fitzenberger, Bernd & Wilke, Ralf, 2007. "New Insights on Unemployment Duration and Post Unemployment Earnings in Germany: Censored Box-Cox Quantile Regression at Work," IZA Discussion Papers 2609, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  7. Insik Min & Inchul Kim, 2004. "A Monte Carlo comparison of parametric and nonparametric quantile regressions," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 71-74.
  8. Wilke, Ralf A. & Fitzenberger, Bernd & Zhang, Xuan, 2005. "A Note on Implementing Box-Cox Quantile Regression," ZEW Discussion Papers 04-61 [rev.], ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research.
  9. Bernd Fitzenberger & Ralf Wilke & Xuan Zhang, 2010. "Implementing Box-Cox Quantile Regression," Econometric Reviews, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 158-181.
  10. Zhenlin Yang & Yiu Kuen Tse, 2004. "Modeling Firm-Size Distribution Using Box-Cox Heteroscedastic Regression," Working Papers 10-2004, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
  11. Christopher A Laincz & Ana Sofia Domingues Rodrigues, . "A Theoretical Foundation for Understanding Firm Size Distributions and Gibrat's Law," Discussion Papers 05/34, Department of Economics, University of York.
  12. Cheung, Cherry & Coucke, Kristien & Neicu, Daniel, 2011. "A Decision Tree as a Quick Scan for Effective Market Functioning," Working Papers 2011/06, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
  13. Carlos Lamarche & Alberto Porto & Walter Sosa Escudero, 1998. "Aspectos Regionales del Desempleo en la Argentina," Department of Economics, Working Papers 008, Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
  14. Mercedes Teruel & Agustí Segarra, 2011. "Productivity and R&D sources in manufacturing and service firms in Catalonia: a regional approach," ERSA conference papers ersa11p1860, European Regional Science Association.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:15:y:2000:i:3:p:253-274

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing) or (Christopher F. Baum).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.