The effect of the Great Recession on the employment growth of young vs. small firms in the Eurozone

Abstract

This paper examines the uneven impact of the Great Recession on firm-level employment growth across firm size and age classes. Based on firm-level data from ten Eurozone countries, we show that, notwithstanding the negative impact of the crisis, young firms were the most dynamic group of firms and prime contributors to net job creation even during the recession. However, conditional on survival, young firms experienced a sharp drop in their employment growth rates, whereas small firms were mostly unaffected. By using industry-level measures of external financial dependence, we then show how financial frictions were a driver of the growth rates slowdown of young firms.

Modeling economic losses and greenhouse gas emissions reduction during the COVID-19 pandemic: Past, present, and future scenarios for Italy

“…The existing literature on regional resilience has focused on several drivers related to the specific characteristics of local economies. Martin (2012) stresses the importance of the concept of economic structure in general, which can involve different dimensions such as industrial or technological structure, the skill composition of local labor markets, or the size distribution of firms ( Mina and Santoleri, 2021 ; Fusillo et al, 2019 ). This study acknowledges the importance of looking at the sectoral composition of local economies to understand the varying impact of external shocks across different areas as well as how reconfiguring the economic structures can help successfully respond to a crisis ( Martini, 2020 ; Bloise and Tancioni, 2021 ).…”

High growth episodes among R&D intensive firms: Evidence for Europe, US and Japan

“…Additionally, the findings on Japanese and EU firms confirm the episodic nature of the high growth episodes in these regions (World Bank, 2019). experience longer episodes of high growth than young firms, which might be attributed to their internal capabilities to manage high growth episodes (Mina & Santoleri, 2021).…”

“…However, in terms of R&D intensity, US-based firms outperform other firms in the dataset. Finally, older firms seem to experience longer episodes of high growth than young firms, which might be attributed to their internal capabilities to manage high growth episodes (Mina and Santoleri, 2021).…”

Upgrading Italy's Industrial Capacity: Industry 4.0 across Regions and Sectors

“…See for exampleMina and Santoleri (2021) for a detailed analysis of the effect of the 2008 crisis on firms across European regions. 15 See Mission 1, Component 2 -Digitisation, innovation and competitiveness in the production system of the Italian PNRR.…”