Technology and the Size Distribution of Firms: Evidence from Dutch Manufacturing

Orietta Marsili ()

Review of Industrial Organization, 2005, vol. 27, issue 4, 303-328

Abstract: Empirical studies have shown that the size distribution of firms can be described as a Pareto distribution. However, these studies have focused on large firms and aggregate statistics. Little attention has been placed on the role of technology in shaping firm size distributions. Using a comprehensive dataset of manufacturing firms and the Community Innovation Survey from the Netherlands, the paper investigates the relationship between firm size and technology. It shows that technological factors shape the distribution of firm size, suggesting that the Pareto law is not an invariant property and that technology can constrain the “self-organising” character of industrial economies. Copyright Springer 2005

Keywords: firm size; Gibrat’s law; innovation; Pareto distribution; L11; L60; O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11151-005-5053-z

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