Company size distribution in different countries

The distribution of companies in a country, ranked in order of size (annual net revenue) s, follows the simplified canonical law s(r) similar to (r + rho)(-1/theta) remarkably well, where r is the rank, and theta and rho are the parameters of the distribution. These parameters have been determined for 20 countries in America, Asia and Europe. Significant differences between countries are found Neither theta nor rho appears to correlate well with traditional economic indicators; indeed some countries often thought to be economically and politically, but not necessarily socially, similar show surprising differences, suggesting that wealth and prosperity are influenced by hidden layers hitherto inaccessible through standard economic theory. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.