Structural Macroeconomic Change and the Size Pattern of Manufacturing Firms

The crisis of the so-called Golden Age regime has been paralleled since the late 1960s by an increasing importance of market exchanges as opposed to vertically integrated manufacturing activity, leading to major changes in the size structure of firms. These changes have generally taken the form of an employment shift towards low-scale firms, lower average size and a higher number of manufacturing units. This book tries to explain on theoretical grounds the reasons for such important discontinuity.

Autorentext
FABRIZIO TRAÙ is Senior Economist in the Research Department of the Confederation of Italian Industries, Italy, and Research Associate at the ESRC Centre for Business Research at the University of Cambridge, UK

Inhalt
Introduction The Macroeconomic Context in Historical Perspective: Exogenous and Endogenous Changes in Firms' 'Competitive Environment' A Theoretical Framework Empirical Analysis I: Employment Shares and Absolute Employment Growth at the Size Level for Firms and Establishments. Six countries in Two Different Phases of Industrial Development Empirical Analysis II: Absolute Numbers of Business Units ands their Average Size over the Long Run:' Models of Industrial Development Firms versus Plants: A Closer Examination of their Different Behaviour in the Face of Structural Change Conclusive Remarks Appendices