IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-07c00002.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the relationship between firms' size and growth rate

Author

Listed:
  • Giulio Bottazzi

    (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna)

Abstract

Since the seminal work of Pareto, many empirical analyses suggestedthat the distribution of firms size is characterized by an asymptoticpower like behavior. At the same time, several investigations showthat the distribution of annual growth rates of firms displays aremarkable double-exponential shape. Recently it has been suggestedthat both these statistical properties can be explained by assuming abivariate Marshall-Olkin power-like distribution for the size of firmsin subsequent time steps. Through analytical investigation, I showthat the marginal distribution of growth rates implied by thisassumption does not possess, in general, a Laplace shape and becomesdegenerate when subsequent size levels are perfectly correlated. Assuch, the bivariate Marshall-Olkin distribution is unable to properlyaccount for the observed regularities. The original suggestion isfaulty as it treats firm size levels as stationary stochasticvariables and neglects their integrated nature.

Suggested Citation

  • Giulio Bottazzi, 2008. "On the relationship between firms' size and growth rate," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(8), pages 1-7.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-07c00002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2008/Volume3/EB-07C00002A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Palestrini, Antonio, 2007. "Analysis of industrial dynamics: A note on the relationship between firms' size and growth rate," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 367-371, March.
    2. Brock, W A, 1999. "Scaling in Economics: A Reader's Guide," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 8(3), pages 409-446, September.
    3. 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.
    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. Cirillo, Pasquale & Hüsler, Jürg, 2009. "On the upper tail of Italian firms’ size distribution," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(8), pages 1546-1554.

    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. Giulio Bottazzi, 2007. "A comment on the relationship between firms' size and growth rate," LEM Papers Series 2007/11, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Giorgio Fagiolo & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini, 2008. "Are output growth-rate distributions fat-tailed? some evidence from OECD countries," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 639-669.
    3. Mundt, Philipp & Alfarano, Simone & Milaković, Mishael, 2020. "Exploiting ergodicity in forecasts of corporate profitability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Carolina Castaldi & Giovanni Dosi, 2007. "The patterns of output growth of firms and countries: new evidence on scale invariances and scale specificities," LEM Papers Series 2007/14, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    6. Jakub Growiec & Fabio Pammolli & Massimo Riccaboni, 2020. "Innovation and Corporate Dynamics: A Theoretical Framework," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 12(1), pages 1-45, March.
    7. Williams, Michael A. & Pinto, Brijesh P. & Park, David, 2015. "Global evidence on the distribution of firm growth rates," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 432(C), pages 102-107.
    8. Flavio Calvino & Daniele Giachini & Mattia Guerini, 2022. "The age distribution of business firms," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 205-245, January.
    9. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/9848 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Matthias Duschl & Thomas Brenner, 2013. "Characteristics of regional industry-specific employment growth rates' distributions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(2), pages 249-270, June.
    11. Cornelia Metzig & Mirta B. Gordon, 2013. "A Model for Scaling in Firms' Size and Growth Rate Distribution," Papers 1304.4311, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2013.
    12. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2008:i:8:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/9848 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Matthias Duschl & Thomas Brenner, 2011. "Characteristics of Regional Industry-specific Employment Growth – Empirical Evidence for Germany," Working Papers on Innovation and Space 2011-07, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    15. Jan Schulz & Daniel M. Mayerhoffer, 2021. "Equal chances, unequal outcomes? Network-based evolutionary learning and the industrial dynamics of superstar firms," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(9), pages 1357-1385, November.
    16. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/9848 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/9848 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Lu, Jinfeng & Dimov, Dimo, 2023. "A system dynamics modelling of entrepreneurship and growth within firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(3).
    19. Lamperti, Francesco & Bosetti, Valentina & Roventini, Andrea & Tavoni, Massimo & Treibich, Tania, 2021. "Three green financial policies to address climate risks," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    20. Francesco Lamperti & Giovanni Dosi & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Alessandro Sapio, 2018. "And then he wasn't a she : Climate change and green transitions in an agent-based integrated assessment model," Working Papers hal-03443464, HAL.
    21. Torsten Heinrich & Jangho Yang & Shuanping Dai, 2020. "Growth, development, and structural change at the firm-level: The example of the PR China," Papers 2012.14503, arXiv.org.
    22. Hernan Mondani & Petter Holme & Fredrik Liljeros, 2014. "Fat-Tailed Fluctuations in the Size of Organizations: The Role of Social Influence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-9, July.
    23. Stefano Bianchini & Giulio Bottazzi & Federico Tamagni, 2017. "What does (not) characterize persistent corporate high-growth?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 633-656, March.
    24. Florian Léon, 2022. "The elusive quest for high-growth firms in Africa: when other metrics of performance say nothing," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 225-246, January.
    25. Massing, Till & Puente-Ajovín, Miguel & Ramos, Arturo, 2020. "On the parametric description of log-growth rates of cities’ sizes of four European countries and the USA," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 551(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm Growth;

    JEL classification:

    • C0 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General
    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-07c00002. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.