Corporate growth convergence in Europe*

Abstract

It is widely believed that the implementation of the Single Market Programme in 1992 has induced a transformation in industrial structures across Europe. Some people believe that it has driven Europe towards a common industrial structure. However, using a newly available database covering nearly every firm above 100 employees in 14 European countries over the time period 1994 to 1998, the hypothesis of convergence in corporate sizes within industries is unambiguously rejected by the data. A Gibrat process best describes the growth of very large and mature firms, but smaller and younger firms depart from this prediction. Pre-post 1992 comparisons using another database for larger listed firms reveal that the speed of convergence actually decreased post-1992.

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