Not All High-Growth Firms Are Alike: Capturing and Tagging Ohio’s Gazelles

Merissa C. Piazza and Edward (Ned) Hill

Economic Development Quarterly, 2021, vol. 35, issue 3, 219-231

Abstract: In this study, the authors present a statistically valid typology of high-growth firms (HGFs), also known as gazelles, to determine if payroll and job growth patterns differ between groups or clusters. Cluster–discriminant analysis was conducted on a cohort of 26,104 HGFs s in Ohio, using data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages from 2010 to 2015. Only 1.2% of all Ohio’s firms can be classified as high growth. The larger herd of gazelles grows consistently, while the other, much smaller pack experiences short, intense growth spurts. Roughly 30% of the two gazelle clusters (Consistent High Growth and Volatile High Growth) are in the information service, financial service, and professional and business service industries, compared with 18% in the low- and slow-growth cluster. The nongazelle HGF cluster has proportionately more businesses in manufacturing and the leisure and hospitality industries than the gazelle clusters.

Keywords: gazelles; high-growth firms; cluster–discriminant analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecdequ:v:35:y:2021:i:3:p:219-231

DOI: 10.1177/08912424211023556

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