Firm Performance and Evolution: Empirical Regularities in the US Microdata

Abstract

This paper explores what we know and bow we think about firm performance, firm and industry evolution, and economic growth. It reports empirical findings from a new literature that focuses explicitly on individual business units. In contrast to traditional empirical studies of competition and economic growth that examine aggregate economic variables such as industry or regional productivity, this new work concentrates on differences in the behavior of firms and their business units. The results emerging from these analyses confirm the importance of microeconomic approaches to economic research and place the firm at the center of economic growth. ' A related factor ii that molt economists simply did not think that the biases inherent in misspecified industry-and economy-wide modelj were very large. Of count, in the absence of access to the microdata, there was simply no other alternative than to use the aggregative data. ' See McGuckin and Pascoe (1988) for a description of the LRD. Research with the LRD is described in McGuckin (1995), McGuckin and Reinek (1993) and the annual reports of the CES.

Organizational Capabilities, Patterns of Knowledge Accumulation and Governance Structures in Business Firms: An Introduction

“…With regards to various indicators of efficiency (in primis, labour productivity) as Jensen and McGuckin (1997) note, an increasing number of studies highlights a pervasive heterogeneity in firms' and plants' characteristics both cross-sectionally and over time 10 .…”

Statistical regularities in the evolution of industries: a guide through some evidence and challenges for the theory

“…Come as it may, on overwhelming evidence concerning both labour productivity and TFP and at all levels of disaggregation suggest widespread differences in production efficiency across firms and across plants which tend to be persistent over time: see, among others, Nelson (1981), Baily et al (1992), Baldwin (1995), Bartelsman and Doms (2000), Jensen and McGuckin (1997), Power (1998), Rumelt (1991).…”

Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

“…Nelson, 1981, Baily et al, 1992, Baldwin, 1995, Bartelsman and Doms, 2000, Bottazzi et al, 2007Jensen and McGuckin, 1997, Power, 1998, Rumelt, 1991, Syverson, 2004.…”