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The Industry Life-Cycle of the Size Distribution of Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Emin Dinlersoz

    (Census Bureau)

  • Glenn MacDonald

    (Wahington University)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the evolution of the distributions of output and employment across firms in U.S. manufacturing industries from 1963 until 1997. The firm size distribution changes significantly as an industry goes through stages of its life-cycle. The evolutions of the employment and output distributions also differ significantly, but display strong inter-industry regularities, including that the nature of the evolution depends on whether the industry is experiencing growth, shakeout, maturity, or decline. The observed patterns have implications for theories of industry dynamics and evolution. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Suggested Citation

  • Emin Dinlersoz & Glenn MacDonald, 2009. "The Industry Life-Cycle of the Size Distribution of Firms," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(4), pages 648-667, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:issued:07-107
    DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2009.01.001
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    7. Thorbjørn Knudsen & Daniel A. Levinthal & Sidney G. Winter, 2017. "Systematic Differences and Random Rates: Reconciling Gibrat’s Law with Firm Differences," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(2), pages 111-120, June.
    8. MORITA, Hodaka & TANG, Cheng-Tao, 2017. "Asset Specificity, Human Capital Acquisition, and Labor Market Competition," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-42, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    9. Jaap W. B. Bos & Erik Stam, 2014. "Gazelles and industry growth: a study of young high-growth firms in The Netherlands," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 145-169, February.
    10. Jinji, Naoto & Zhang, Xingyuan & Haruna, Shoji, 2019. "Does a firm with higher Tobin’s q prefer foreign direct investment to foreign outsourcing?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    11. Christian Cordes & Tong-Yaa Su & Pontus Strimling, 2019. "A critical human group size and firm size distributions in industries," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 123-144, July.
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    14. Bos, J.W.B. & Stam, E., 2011. "Gazelles, industry growth and structural change," Research Memorandum 018, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
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    16. Qi Li & Patrick Paul Walsh, 2009. "The Firm Size Distribution in a Small Open Economy: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 200920, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
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    18. Moutinho, Ricardo & Au-Yong-Oliveira, Manuel & Coelho, Arnaldo & Manso, José Pires, 2015. "Beyond the “Innovation's Black-Box”: Translating R&D outlays into employment and economic growth," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 45-58.
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    21. Alireza Javanmardi Kashan & Kavoos Mohannak, 2017. "The Role of Knowledge Integration in Capability Development and Emergence of Innovation Ecosystem," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(05), pages 1-18, October.
    22. Thomas Brenner & Matthias Dorner, 2017. "Is there a life cycle in all industries? First evidence from industry size dynamics in West Germany," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 289-297, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm size distribution; Industry evolution; Industry dynamics; Manufacturing industries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

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