The variance of firm growth rates: the 'scaling' puzzle

被引:67
作者
Sutton, J [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ London London Sch Econ & Polit Sci, STICERD, London WC2A 2AE, England
关键词
size distribution; scaling; power law; partitions; corporate growth;
D O I
10.1016/S0378-4371(02)00852-X
中图分类号
O4 [物理学];
学科分类号
0702 ;
摘要
Recent evidence suggests that a power-law relationship exists between a firm's size and the variance of its growth rate. The flatness of the relation is regarded as puzzling, in that it suggests that large firms are not much more stable than small firms. It has been suggested that the power-law nature of the, relationship reflects the presence of some form of correlation of growth rates across the firm's constituent businesses. Here, it is shown that a model of independent businesses which allows for the fact that these businesses vary in size, as modelled by a simple 'partitions of integers' model, provides a good representation of what is observed empirically. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
引用
收藏
页码:577 / 590
页数:14
相关论文
共 9 条
[1]   Power law scaling for a system of interacting units with complex internal structure [J].
Amaral, LAN ;
Buldyrev, SV ;
Havlin, S ;
Salinger, MA ;
Stanley, HE .
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, 1998, 80 (07) :1385-1388
[2]  
ANDREWS G, 1970, THEORY PARTITIONS EN
[3]  
FINE NJ, 1980, MATH SURVEYS MONOGRA, V27
[4]  
Gibrat R., 1931, Les inegalites economiques. Applications: aux inegalites des richesses, a la concentration des entreprises, aux populations des villes, aux statistiques des familles, etc. d'une loi nouvelle: la loi de l'effet proportionnel
[5]   Universal features in the growth dynamics of complex organizations [J].
Lee, YK ;
Amaral, LAN ;
Canning, D ;
Meyer, M ;
Stanley, HE .
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, 1998, 81 (15) :3275-3278
[6]  
PIEROU V, 1999, NATURE, V400, P433
[7]  
STANLEY R, 1996, NATURE, V319, P804
[8]  
Sutton J, 1997, J ECON LIT, V35, P40
[9]  
SUTTON J., 1998, TECHNOLOGY MARKET ST