This paper investigates the relevance of financial and economic variables as determinants of firm defaults. Our analysis is not limited to publicly traded companies but extends to a large sample of limited liability firms. We consider size, growth, profitability and productivity together with a...

In this work we investigate two crucial dimensions of firms’ structure and dynamics, that is profitability and productivity performance. The empirical distributions and the associated persistence over time are explored through a set of parametric and non parametric exercises performed on an...

Diverse theories of industry dynamics predict heterogeneity in production efficiency to be the driver of firms' growth, survival and industrial change, either through a direct link between efficiency and growth, or through an indirect effect via profitabilities, as more productive firms can...

The study of firms' default has attracted wide interest among both practitioners and scholars. However, attention has often been limited to a relatively small set of financial variables. In this work, we try to increase the scope of analysis extending the investigation to other possible...

Combining detailed data on export transactions and an informative firm level measure of financing constraints, this paper provides new evidence on the extent and dynamics of product and geographical diversification of constrained exporters. Financial constraints associates with: (i) narrower...

Using data on cross border transactions together with an informative measure of financing constraints this paper provides new evidence that limited access to external capital narrows the scale of foreign sales, the exporters? product scope and the number of trade partners. It shows that...

The paper examines the causal effect of financial constraints on firm exports. We exploit a firm-level proxy of constraints based on credit ratings and available for a large panel of Italian exporting and non exporting firms. Our estimation strategy allows to cure for self-selection into exports...

Exploiting a large database of Italian manufacturing firms we investigate the relationships between default rate and firm size. Default events, defined as conditions of actual or likely insolvency, are a signal of deep business troubles. They are unanticipated, costly and dangerous for the firm...

The upper tail of the firm size distribution is often assumed to follow a Power Law behavior. Recently, using different estimators and on different data sets, several papers conclude that this distribution follows the Zipf Law, meaning that the fraction of firms whose size is above a given value...

Theoretical and empirical studies of industry dynamics have extensively focused on the process of growth. Theory predicts production efficiency, profitability and financial status as the central channels through which firms can survive, grow and eventually achieve out- standing growth...