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High-Growth Firms in the United States: Key Trends and New Data Opportunities

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Abstract

Using administrative data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we introduce a new public-use database that tracks activities across firm growth distributions over time. With these new data, we uncover several key trends for high-growth firms---critical engines of innovation and economic growth. First, the share of firms that are high-growth has steadily decreased over the past four decades, driven not only by falling rates of entrepreneurship but also languishing growth among existing firms. Second, this decline is particularly pronounced among young and small firms, while the share of high-growth firms has been relatively stable among large and old firms. We also find rich variation across states and sectors. To facilitate future research, we highlight how these data can be used to address various research questions.

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  • Joonkyu Choi & Nathan Goldschlag & John Haltiwanger & J. Daniel Kim, 2024. "High-Growth Firms in the United States: Key Trends and New Data Opportunities," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-074, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2024-74
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2024.074
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    1. John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Robert Kulick & Javier Miranda, 2016. "High Growth Young Firms: Contribution to Job, Output, and Productivity Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges, pages 11-62, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    6. Acs, Zoltan J. & Audretsch, David B., 1987. "An empirical examination of small firm growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 363-366.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Organizational Growth; Entrepreneurship; High-Growth Firms; Business Dynamism; Publicly Available Dataset;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

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