Corporate growth convergence in Europe

Paul A. Geroski and Klaus Gugler

Oxford Economic Papers, 2004, vol. 56, issue 4, pages 597-620

Abstract: It is widely believed that the implementation of the Single Market Programme in 1992 has induced a transformation in industrial structures across Europe. Some people believe that it has driven Europe towards a common industrial structure. However, using a newly available database covering nearly every firm above 100 employees in 14 European countries over the time period 1994 to 1998, the hypothesis of convergence in corporate sizes within industries is unambiguously rejected by the data. A Gibrat process best describes the growth of very large and mature firms, but smaller and younger firms depart from this prediction. Pre-post 1992 comparisons using another database for larger listed firms reveal that the speed of convergence actually decreased post-1992. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2004
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpf055 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Corporate Growth Convergence in Europe (2001)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:56:y:2004:i:4:p:597-620

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.oup.co.uk/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is edited by A. Banerjee and James Forder

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press
Address: Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().