An international comparison of the contribution to job creation by high-growth firms

"This paper addresses three simple questions: how should the contribution of high-growth firms to job creation be measured? how much does this contribution vary across countries? to what extent does the cross-country variation depend on variation in the proportion of high-growth firms in the bu...

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Main Authors: Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Vienna, Anyadike-Danes, Michael, Bjuggren, Carl-Magnus, Dumont, Michel, Gottschalk, Sandra, Hölzl, Werner, Johansson, Dan, Maliranta, Mika, Myrann, Anja, Nielsen, Kristian, Zheng, Guanyu
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Vienna 2018
WIFO
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19390621124911188039-an-international-comparison-of.htm
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author Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Vienna
Anyadike-Danes, Michael
Bjuggren, Carl-Magnus
Dumont, Michel
Gottschalk, Sandra
Hölzl, Werner
Johansson, Dan
Maliranta, Mika
Myrann, Anja
Nielsen, Kristian
Zheng, Guanyu
author_facet Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Vienna
Anyadike-Danes, Michael
Bjuggren, Carl-Magnus
Dumont, Michel
Gottschalk, Sandra
Hölzl, Werner
Johansson, Dan
Maliranta, Mika
Myrann, Anja
Nielsen, Kristian
Zheng, Guanyu
collection Library items
description "This paper addresses three simple questions: how should the contribution of high-growth firms to job creation be measured? how much does this contribution vary across countries? to what extent does the cross-country variation depend on variation in the proportion of high-growth firms in the business population? The first is a methodological question which we answer using a more highly articulated version of the standard job creation and destruction accounts. The other two are empirical questions which we answer using a purpose-built data set assembled from national firm-level sources and covering nine countries, spanning the ten three year periods from 2000-2003 to 2009-2012. The basic principle governing the development of the accounting framework is the choice of appropriate comparators. Firstly, when measuring contributions to job creation, we should focus on just job creating firms, otherwise we are summing over contributions from firms with positive, zero, and negative job creation numbers. Secondly, because we know growth depends in part on size, the "natural" comparison for high-growth firms is with job creation by similar-sized firms which simply did not grow as fast as high-growth firms. However, we also show how the measurement framework can be further extended to include, for example, a consistent measure of the contribution of small job creating firms. On the empirical side, we find that the high-growth firm share of job creation by large job creating firms varies across countries by a factor of 2, from around one third to two thirds. A relatively small proportion of this cross-country variation is accounted for by variations in the influence of high-growth firms on job creation. On average high-growth firms generated between three or four times as many jobs as large non-high-growth job creating firms, but this ratio is relatively similar across countries. The bulk of the cross-country variation in high-growth firm contribution to job creation is accounted for by the relative abundance (or rarity) of high-growth firms. Moreover, we also show that the measurement of abundance depends upon the choice of measurement framework: the "winner" of a cross-national high-growth firm "beauty contest" on one measure will not necessarily be the winner on another."
format TEXT
id 19390621124911188039_0de53eb3f2794d3cbbd90b4efa27f4a6
institution ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
is_hierarchy_id 19390621124911188039_0de53eb3f2794d3cbbd90b4efa27f4a6
is_hierarchy_title An international comparison of the contribution to job creation by high-growth firms
language English
physical 33 p.
Digital
publishDate 2018
publisher Vienna
WIFO
spellingShingle Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Vienna
Anyadike-Danes, Michael
Bjuggren, Carl-Magnus
Dumont, Michel
Gottschalk, Sandra
Hölzl, Werner
Johansson, Dan
Maliranta, Mika
Myrann, Anja
Nielsen, Kristian
Zheng, Guanyu
employment creation
profitability
enterprise
An international comparison of the contribution to job creation by high-growth firms
thumbnail https://www.labourline.org/Image_prev.jpg?Archive=134312495259
title An international comparison of the contribution to job creation by high-growth firms
topic employment creation
profitability
enterprise
url https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19390621124911188039-an-international-comparison-of.htm