Too big to succeed or too big to fail?

It is often argued that smaller/younger firms are more innovative than older/larger firms—the latter may be “too big to succeed.” We show in the context of a simple industry model with consumer search frictions why evidence suggesting that smaller or younger firms are more successful at innovation may be subject to sample selection bias. Specifically, smaller more recent entrants may appear to innovate more successfully simply because unsuccessful larger incumbent firms’ size advantage enables them to survive when unsuccessful smaller ones cannot—they may be “too big to fail.”