How much can firms know?

There are two key stylised facts about the extinction patterns of firms. First, the probability of extinction is highest at the start of the firm"s existence, but soon becomes more or less invariant to the age of the firm. Second, the relationship between the size and frequency of firm extinctions is closely approximated by a power law. An agent based model of firm evolution and extinction has been developed which has properties which conform closely to the stylised facts. We examine the effects of allowing firms different amounts of knowledge about the effects of strategy in the context of this agent-based evolutionary model. There are very considerable returns in the model to acquiring knowledge. As both the amount of knowledge available to firms increases and as the number of firms capable of acquiring such knowledge rises, the lifespan of agents approaches the full information paradigm in which agents live for ever. However, even with relatively low levels of knowledge and numbers of agents capable of acquiring it, the model ceases to have properties which are compatible with the two key stylised facts on firm extinctions. The clear implication is that firms have very limited capacities to acquire knowledge about the true impact of their strategies.