The adequate role of Darwinist concepts in evolutionary economics has long been a contentious issue. The controversy has recently been rekindled and modified by the position of "Universal Darwinism", most prominently favored by Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen. They argue that the...

We attempt to describe the coevolution of employment growth, sales growth and growth of profits in a panel of French manufacturing firms 1996-2004. Our analysis entails 'recursive' panel vector autoregressions, whereby we impose the structure of employment growth leading to contemporaneous sales...

We apply a panel vector autoregression model to a firm-level longitudinal database to observe the co-evolution of sales growth, employment growth, profits growth and growth of R&D expenditure. Contrary to expectations, profit growth seems to have little detectable effect on R&D investment....

While several plots of the aggregate age distribution suggest that firm age is exponentially distributed, we find some departures from the exponential benchmark. At the lower tail, we find that very young establishments are more numerous than expected, but they face high exit hazards. At the...

We focus on the relationship of age and diversification patterns of German machine tool manufacturers in the post war era. Based on trade journals we track the entire firm populations' product portfolio development throughout each firm's lifetime. We distinguish between 'minor diversification'...

While several plots of the aggregate age distribution suggest that firm age is exponentially distributed, we find some departures from the exponential benchmark. At the lower tail, we find that very young establishments are more numerous than expected, but they face high exit hazards. At the...

Our empirical literature review shows that little is known about how firm performance changes with age, presumably because of the paucity of data on firm age. For Spanish manufacturing firms, we analyse the firm performance related to firm age between 1998 and 2006. We find evidence that firms...

We focus on the relationship of age and diversification patterns of German machine tool manufacturers in the post war era. Based on trade journals we track the entire firm populations' product portfolio development throughout each firm's lifetime. We distinguish between minor diversification and...

While several plots of the aggregate age distribution suggest that rm age is expo-finentially distributed, we find some departures from the exponential benchmark. At thelower tail, we find that very young establishments are more numerous than expected,but they face high exit hazards. At the...

Recent research has led to the empirical regularity that rm growth rate distributionsare heavy tailed. This nding implies that a few rms experience spectaculargrowth rates and decline, but that most rms have marginal growth rates. The literatureon high growth rms shows that high growth rms are...