Re-examination of the size distribution of firms

Taisei Kaizoji (), Hiroshi Iyetomi and Yuichi Ikeda

Quantitative Finance Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: In this paper we address the question of the size distribution of firms. To this aim, we use the Bloomberg database comprising multinational firms within the years 1995-2003, and analyze the data of the sales and the total assets of the separate financial statement of the Japanese and the US companies, and make a comparison of the size distributions between the Japanese companies and the US companies. We find that (i) the size distribution of the US firms is approximately log-normal, in agreement with Gibrat's observation (Gibrat 1931), and in contrast (ii) the size distribution of the Japanese firms is clearly not log-normal, and the upper tail of the size distribution follows the Pareto law. It agree with the predictions of the Simon model (Simon 1955). Key words: the size distribution of firms, the Gibrat's law, and the Pareto law

Date: Written
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Published in Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review 2-2 (2006)

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:physics/0512124

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