This work provides an empirical assessment of the 'sophistication' of the Italian international specialization pattern and of its evolution during the period 1980 - 2000. In particular, we discuss the Italian 'anomaly', i.e. the evidence that Italy displays a specialization pattern more similar...

This work presents a comparative analysis of two crucial dimensions of firms performance: profitability and productivity. The characteristics of their empirical distribution and the associated degree of persistence over time are explored through a set of parametric and non-parametric exercises...

This article explores the association between persistence of high-growth and crucial dimensions of firm structure and performance (productivity, profits, investment patterns, innovation, and financial structures) to shed light on what makes a persistent high-growth firm. We employ a...

This study analyzes the effect of financial constraints (FCs) on firm dynamics. We measure FCs with an official credit rating, which captures availability and cost of external resources. We find that FCs undermine average firm growth, induce anti-correlation in growth patterns and reduce the...

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 article provides new evidence on the extent and dynamics of product and geographical diversification of constrained exporters. Financial constraints associate with: (i) narrower...

The upper tail of the firm size distribution is often assumed to follow a Power Law. Several recent papers, using different estimators and different data sets, conclude that the Zipf Law, in particular, provides a good fit, implying that the fraction of firms with size above a given value is...

This paper analyses the patterns of market selection in manufacturing industries of France, Germany, UK, and USA. We first disentangle the contribution to industry-level productivity growth of within-firm productivity changes and between-firm reallocation of shares. The evidence corroborates the...