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Selection and Firm Survival: Evidence from the Shipbuilding Industry, 1825-1914

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Peter Thompson (Florida International University)

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Abstract

Several theories of firm performance can explain the well known observation that survival is positively related to age. However, a more mundane explanation-selection bias driven by variations in firm quality-may also underlie the phenomenon. This paper employs a 90 year plant-level panel data set on the U.S. iron and steel shipbuilding industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to discriminate between the explanations. The shipbuilding industry exhibits the usual joint dependence of survival on age and size, but this dependence is eliminated after controlling for heterogeneity by using preentry experience as a proxy for firm quality. The evidence points to a dominant role for selection bias in creating the age dependence of survival. At the same time, preentry experience is found to have a large and extremely persistent effect on survival, and this finding is inconsistent with standard explanations for the role of preentry experience on firm performance. Copyright (c) 2005 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/0034653053327531
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Publisher Info
Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Review of Economics and Statistics.

Volume (Year): 87 (2005)
Issue (Month): 1 (04)
Pages: 26-36
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Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:87:y:2005:i:1:p:26-36

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  1. Mata, Jose & Portugal, Pedro, 1994. "Life Duration of New Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(3), pages 227-45, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Dunne, Timothy & Roberts, Mark J & Samuelson, Larry, 1989. "The Growth and Failure of U.S. Manufacturing Plants," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 104(4), pages 671-98, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Audretsch, David B & Mahmood, Talat, 1995. "New Firm Survival: New Results Using a Hazard Function," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(1), pages 97-103, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2001. "Vintage Organization Capital," NBER Working Papers 8166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Timothy Dunne & Mark J. Roberts & Larry Samuelson, 1988. "Patterns of Firm Entry and Exit in U.S. Manufacturing Industries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(4), pages 495-515, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1982. "Selection and the Evolution of Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 649-70, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Thomas F. Cooley & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2001. "Financial Markets and Firm Dynamics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1286-1310, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Gian Luca Clementi & Hugo Hopenhayn, . "A Theory of Financing Constraints and Firm Dynamics," GSIA Working Papers 2002-E9, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Hopenhayn, Hugo A, 1992. "Entry, Exit, and Firm Dynamics in Long Run Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(5), pages 1127-50, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Evans, David S, 1987. "The Relationship between Firm Growth, Size, and Age: Estimates for 100 Manufacturing Industries," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(4), pages 567-81, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Hielke Buddelmeyer & Paul H. Jensen & Elizabeth Webster, 2006. "Innovation and the Determinants of Firm Survival," IZA Discussion Papers 2386, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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