IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v324y2003i1p213-219.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A stochastic model of firm growth

Author

Listed:
  • Bottazzi, Giulio
  • Secchi, Angelo

Abstract

Recently from analyses on different databases the tent-shape of the distribution of firm growth rates has emerged as a robust and universal characteristic of the time evolution of corporates. We add new evidence on this topic and we present a new stochastic model that, under rather general assumptions, provides a robust explanation for the observed regularity.

Suggested Citation

  • Bottazzi, Giulio & Secchi, Angelo, 2003. "A stochastic model of firm growth," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 324(1), pages 213-219.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:324:y:2003:i:1:p:213-219
    DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01889-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437102018897
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01889-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giulio Bottazzi & Angelo Secchi, 2002. "On the Laplace Distribution of Firms Growth Rates," LEM Papers Series 2002/20, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    2. John Sutton, 1997. "Gibrat's Legacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 40-59, March.
    3. L. A. N. Amaral & S. V. Buldyrev & S. Havlin & H. Leschhorn & P. Maass & M. A. Salinger & H. E. Stanley & M. H. R. Stanley, 1997. "Scaling behavior in economics: I. Empirical results for company growth," Papers cond-mat/9702082, arXiv.org.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Amaral, L.A.N. & Gopikrishnan, P. & Plerou, V. & Stanley, H.E., 2001. "A model for the growth dynamics of economic organizations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 299(1), pages 127-136.
    7. S. V. Buldyrev & L. A. N. Amaral & S. Havlin & H. Leschhorn & P. Maass & M. A. Salinger & H. E. Stanley & M. H. R. Stanley, 1997. "Scaling behavior in economics: II. Modeling of company growth," Papers cond-mat/9702085, arXiv.org.
    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. Lu, Jinfeng & Dimov, Dimo, 2023. "A system dynamics modelling of entrepreneurship and growth within firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(3).
    3. 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.
    4. Fioretti, Guido, 2007. "The production function," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 374(2), pages 707-714.
    5. 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.
    6. G. Dosi & M. C. Pereira & M. E. Virgillito, 2018. "On the robustness of the fat-tailed distribution of firm growth rates: a global sensitivity analysis," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 13(1), pages 173-193, April.
    7. Giovanni Dosi & Alessio Moneta & Elena Stepanova, 2019. "Dynamic increasing returns and innovation diffusion: bringing Polya Urn processes to the empirical data," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(4), pages 461-478, April.
    8. Tomasz Kozubowski & Saralees Nadarajah, 2010. "Multitude of Laplace distributions," Statistical Papers, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 127-148, January.
    9. Giovanni Dosi & Marco Faillo & Luigi Marengo, 2003. "Organizational Capabilities, Patterns of Knowledge Accumulation and Governance Structures in Business Firms. An Introduction," LEM Papers Series 2003/11, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    10. Fabio Clementi & Mauro Gallegati, 2005. "Pareto's Law of Income Distribution: Evidence for Grermany, the United Kingdom, and the United States," Microeconomics 0505006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Aziza Garsaa & Nadine Levratto, 2015. "Do labor tax rebates facilitate firm growth? An empirical study on French establishments in the manufacturing industry, 2004–2011," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 613-641, October.
    12. Manas, Arnaud, 2009. "French butchers don't do quantum physics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 101-106, May.
    13. Jerker Denrell & Christina Fang & Chengwei Liu, 2015. "Perspective—Chance Explanations in the Management Sciences," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 923-940, June.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Bottazzi, Giulio & Secchi, Angelo, 2003. "Why are distributions of firm growth rates tent-shaped?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 415-420, September.
    4. 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.
    5. Xie, Wen-Jie & Gu, Gao-Feng & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2010. "On the growth of primary industry and population of China’s counties," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(18), pages 3876-3882.
    6. Gualdi, Stanislao & Mandel, Antoine, 2016. "On the emergence of scale-free production networks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 61-77.
    7. Giorgio Fagiolo & Alessandra Luzzi, 2006. "Do liquidity constraints matter in explaining firm size and growth? Some evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 15(1), pages 1-39, February.
    8. Alex Coad, 2007. "Firm Growth: a Survey," Post-Print halshs-00155762, HAL.
    9. Sean Holly & Emiliano Santoro, 2007. "Financial Fragility, Heterogeneous Firms and the Cross Section of the Business Cycle," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 96, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    10. Buldyrev, Sergey V. & Salinger, Michael A. & Stanley, H. Eugene, 2016. "A statistical physics implementation of Coase׳s theory of the firm," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 536-557.
    11. 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.
    12. Dosi, Giovanni & Nelson, Richard R., 2010. "Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 51-127, Elsevier.
    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. 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.
    15. Toke Reichstein & Morten Berg Jensen, 2003. "Analyzing the Distributions of the Stochastic Firm Growth Approach," DRUID Working Papers 03-12, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    16. Aziza Garsaa & Nadine Levratto, 2015. "Do labor tax rebates facilitate firm growth? An empirical study on French establishments in the manufacturing industry, 2004–2011," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 613-641, October.
    17. Pammolli, Fabio & Fu, Dongfeng & Buldyrev, Sergey V. & Riccaboni, Massimo & Matia, Kaushik & Yamasaki, Kazuko & Stanley, H. Eugene, 2006. "A Generalized Preferential Attachment Model for Business Firms Growth Rates: I. Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 15983, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Fu, Dongfeng & Pammolli, Fabio & Buldyrev, Sergey V. & Riccaboni, Massimo & Matia, Kaushik & Yamasaki, Kazuko & Stanley, H. Eugene, 2005. "The Growth of Business Firms: Theoretical Framework and Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 15905, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Fioretti, Guido, 2007. "The production function," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 374(2), pages 707-714.
    20. 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.

    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:eee:phsmap:v:324:y:2003:i:1:p:213-219. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    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.