IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/cesptp/halshs-00118801.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Understanding the processes of firm growth - a closer look at serial growth rate correlation

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Coad

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Max Planck Institute of Economics - Max-Planck-Gesellschaft)

Abstract

Serial correlation in annual growth rates carries a lot of information on growth processes - it allows us to directly observe firm performance as well as to test hypotheses. Using a 7-year balanced panel of 10 000 French manufacturing firms, we observe that small firms typically are subject to negative correlation of growth rates, whereas larger firms display positive correlation. Furthermore, we find that those small firms that experience extreme positive or negative growth in any one year are unlikely to repeat this performance in the following year.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Coad, 2006. "Understanding the processes of firm growth - a closer look at serial growth rate correlation," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00118801, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00118801
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00118801
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00118801/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giulio Bottazzi & Angelo Secchi, 2003. "Common Properties and Sectoral Specificities in the Dynamics of U.S. Manufacturing Companies," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 23(3_4), pages 217-232, December.
    2. Alex Coad, 2006. "Towards an Explanation of the Exponential Distribution of Firm Growth Rates [A la recherche d'une explication de la distribution exponentielle des taux de croissance des firmes]," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00113346, HAL.
    3. Giulio Bottazzi & Elena Cefis & Giovanni Dosi, 2002. "Corporate growth and industrial structures: some evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 11(4), pages 705-723, August.
    4. Giulio Bottazzi & Alex Coad & Nadia Jacoby & Angelo Secchi, 2011. "Corporate growth and industrial dynamics: evidence from French manufacturing," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 103-116.
    5. G. Bottazzi & E. Cefis & G. Dosi & A. Secchi, 2003. "Invariances and Diversities in the Evolution of Manufacturing Industries," Working Papers 03-17, Utrecht School of Economics.
    6. Alex Coad & Rekha Rao, 2006. "As luck would have it: innovation and market value in "complex technology" sectors [Innovation et valeur boursière dans les secteurs de " technologies complexes "]," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00119062, HAL.
    7. Friedman, Milton, 1992. "Do Old Fallacies Ever Die?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 2129-2132, December.
    8. Giulio Bottazzi & Angelo Secchi, 2006. "Explaining the distribution of firm growth rates," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(2), pages 235-256, June.
    9. repec:bla:jindec:v:45:y:1997:i:2:p:171-89 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Paul Geroski & Mariana Mazzucato, 2002. "Learning and the sources of corporate growth," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 11(4), pages 623-644, August.
    11. G. Bottazzi & E. Cefis & G. Dosi & A. Secchi, 2007. "Invariances and Diversities in the Patterns of Industrial Evolution: Some Evidence from Italian Manufacturing Industries," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 137-159, June.
    12. John Sutton, 1997. "Gibrat's Legacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 40-59, March.
    13. Paul A. Geroski & Stephen J. Machin & Christopher F. Walters, 1997. "Corporate Growth and Profitability," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 171-189, June.
    14. Chesher, Andrew, 1979. "Testing the Law of Proportionate Effect," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 403-411, June.
    15. Goddard, John & Wilson, John & Blandon, Peter, 2002. "Panel tests of Gibrat's Law for Japanese manufacturing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 415-433, March.
    16. Boeri, Tito & Cramer, Ulrich, 1992. "Employment growth, incumbents and entrants : Evidence from Germany," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 545-565, December.
    17. Bottazzi, Giulio & Dosi, Giovanni & Lippi, Marco & Pammolli, Fabio & Riccaboni, Massimo, 2001. "Innovation and corporate growth in the evolution of the drug industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(7), pages 1161-1187, July.
    18. Dunne, Paul & Hughes, Alan, 1994. "Age, Size, Growth and Survival: UK Companies in the 1980s," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 115-140, June.
    19. Geroski, Paul A, 1999. "The Growth of Firms in Theory and in Practice," CEPR Discussion Papers 2092, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Kumar, M S, 1985. "Growth, Acquisition Activity and Firm Size: Evidence from the United Kingdom," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 327-338, March.
    21. Roger Koenker & Kevin F. Hallock, 2001. "Quantile Regression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 143-156, Fall.
    22. Francesca Lotti & Enrico Santarelli & Marco Vivarelli, 2003. "Does Gibrat's Law hold among young, small firms?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 213-235, August.
    23. Ajit Singh & Geoffrey Whittington, 1975. "The Size and Growth of Firms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(1), pages 15-26.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Alex Coad & Max Planck, 2012. "Firms as Bundles of Discrete Resources – Towards an Explanation of the Exponential Distribution of Firm Growth Rates," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 189-209.
    2. Alex Coad, 2007. "Firm Growth: a Survey," Post-Print halshs-00155762, HAL.
    3. Deschryvere, Matthias, 2008. "High Growth Firms and Job Creation in Finland," Discussion Papers 1144, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    4. Coad, Alex & Rao, Rekha, 2008. "Innovation and firm growth in high-tech sectors: A quantile regression approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 633-648, May.
    5. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:15:y:2006:i:13:p:1-10 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Alex Coad & Rekha Rao, 2006. "As luck would have it: innovation and market value in "complex technology" sectors [Innovation et valeur boursière dans les secteurs de " technologies complexes "]," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00119062, HAL.
    7. Alex Coad & Rekha Rao, 2010. "Firm growth and R&D expenditure," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 127-145.
    8. Coad, Alex, 2007. "Testing the principle of `growth of the fitter': The relationship between profits and firm growth," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 370-386, September.
    9. Alex Coad, 2007. "A Closer Look at Serial Growth Rate Correlation," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 31(1), pages 69-82, August.
    10. Alex Coad, 2007. "Exploring the "mechanics" of firm growth: evidence from a short-panel VAR," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne r07037, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    11. Marco Corsino & Roberto Gabriele & Enrico Zaninotto, 2009. "How Do Organizational Capabilities Shape Industry Dynamics ?," LEM Papers Series 2009/10, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    12. Toke Reichstein & Michael Dahl & Bernd Ebersberger & Morten Jensen, 2010. "The devil dwells in the tails," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 219-231, April.
    13. Daria Ciriaci & Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello & Peter Voigt, 2016. "Innovation and job creation: a sustainable relation?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(2), pages 189-213, August.
    14. Davidsson, Per & Steffens, Paul & Fitzsimmons, Jason, 2009. "Growing profitable or growing from profits: Putting the horse in front of the cart?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 388-406, July.
    15. F. Zhou & W.J.W. Botzen, 2017. "The Impact of Natural Disasters on Firm Growth in Vietnam:: Interaction with Financial Constraints," Working Papers 17-20, Utrecht School of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alex Coad, 2007. "A Closer Look at Serial Growth Rate Correlation," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 31(1), pages 69-82, August.
    2. Daria Ciriaci & Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello & Peter Voigt, 2016. "Innovation and job creation: a sustainable relation?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(2), pages 189-213, August.
    3. Daria Ciriaci & Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello & Peter Voigt, 2012. "Does size or age of innovative firms affect their growth persistence? -Evidence from a panel of innovative Spanish firms-," JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation 2012-03, Joint Research Centre.
    4. Alex Coad & Werner Hölzl, 2012. "Firm Growth: Empirical Analysis," Chapters, in: Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft (ed.), Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm, chapter 24, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Giulio Bottazzi & Taewon Kang & Federico Tamagni, 2023. "Persistence in firm growth: inference from conditional quantile transition matrices," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 745-770, August.
    6. Philipp Mundt & Simone Alfarano & Mishael Milakovic, 2016. "Gibrat’s Law Redux: think profitability instead of growth," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 25(4), pages 549-571.
    7. Alex Coad, 2007. "Firm Growth: a Survey," Post-Print halshs-00155762, HAL.
    8. Alex Coad & Werner Hölzl, 2009. "On the Autocorrelation of Growth Rates," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 139-166, June.
    9. Marco Capasso & Elena Cefis & Alessandro Sapio, 2013. "Reconciling quantile autoregressions of firm size and variance–size scaling," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 609-632, October.
    10. Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Daniel Halvarsson, 2015. "Are high-growth firms one-hit wonders? Evidence from Sweden," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 361-383, February.
    11. Canarella, Giorgio & Miller, Stephen M., 2018. "The determinants of growth in the U.S. information and communication technology (ICT) industry: A firm-level analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 259-271.
    12. Thomas Brenner & Matthias Duschl, 2014. "Modelling Firm and Market Dynamics - A Flexible Model Reproducing Existing Stylized Facts," Working Papers on Innovation and Space 2014-07, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    13. Thomas Brenner & Matthias Duschl, 2018. "Modeling Firm and Market Dynamics: A Flexible Model Reproducing Existing Stylized Facts on Firm Growth," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 745-772, October.
    14. Giulio Bottazzi & Angelo Secchi, 2006. "Explaining the distribution of firm growth rates," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(2), pages 235-256, June.
    15. Giulio Bottazzi & Angelo Secchi & Federico Tamagni, 2014. "Financial constraints and firm dynamics," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 99-116, January.
    16. Coad, Alex & Rao, Rekha, 2008. "Innovation and firm growth in high-tech sectors: A quantile regression approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 633-648, May.
    17. D.B. Audretsch & L. Klomp & E. Santarelli & A.R. Thurik, 2004. "Gibrat's Law: Are the Services Different?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 24(3), pages 301-324, May.
    18. Goedhuys-Degelin M.D.L. & Sleuwaegen L., 2015. "Human capital, innovation and the distribution of firm growth rates," MERIT Working Papers 2015-013, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    19. Alex Coad & Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Daniel Halvarsson, 2018. "Bursting into life: firm growth and growth persistence by age," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 55-75, January.
    20. Habermann, Harald, 2017. "Business takeovers and firm growth: Empirical evidence from a German panel," Working Papers 01/17, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    quantile regression; firm growth; Serial correlation; Autocorrélation; croissance des firmes; régression par quantile;
    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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00118801. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.