Recession and Recovery: The Distribution of EU Firm Growth 2005-2014

Florian Flachenecker (), Martin Kornejew and Mario Janiri
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Florian Flachenecker: European Commission - JRC, https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/index_en
Mario Janiri: European Commission - JRC, https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/index_en

No JRC123700, JRC Research Reports from Joint Research Centre

Abstract: This report investigates firm growth before, during and after the Great Recession 2007-2009. We use a representative sample of firms from the business economy in 16 Member States of the European Union (EU) between 2005 and 2014. Empirical analysis of firm distributions across time reveal the following facts. (i) The Great Recession of 2007-2009 reduced growth across the board.(ii) The recovery process though was disproportionately driven by a few large firms. (iii) During the first phase of the recovery, the firm growth distribution shifted upwards as a whole. (iv) During the second phase, only the left tail of negative growth got shorter. (iii) The recession reduced the share of HGEs in all size classes, but especially among large firms. (iv) Yet, even during the Great Recession HGEs played an important role for aggregate sales growth. (v) Although HGEs tend to be smaller than the average firm, their outstanding contribution to aggregate sales growth is predominantly driven by large HGEs. This holds true throughout the recession. We conclude with insights from the recovery of the Great Recession that might be relevant also in the current COVID-19 context.

Keywords: high growth enterprises; Great Recession; COVID-19; European Union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-sbm
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