Small vs. Young Firms across the World : Contribution to Employment, Job Creation, and Growth

Ayyagari, Meghana ; Demirguc-Kunt, Asli ; Maksimovic, Vojislav

关键词: ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES;    AGE GROUPS;    AGGREGATE EMPLOYMENT;    BUSINESS CLIMATE;    BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5631
RP-ID  :  WPS5631

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper describes a uniquecross-country database that presents consistent andcomparable information on the contribution of the small andmedium enterprises sector to total employment, job creation,and growth in 99 countries. The authors compare and contrastthe importance of small and medium enterprises to that ofyoung firms across different economies. They find that smallfirms (in particular, firms with less than 100 employees)and mature firms (in particular, firms older than 10 years)have the largest shares of total employment and jobcreation. Small firms and young firms have higher jobcreation rates than large and mature firms. However, largefirms and young firms have higher productivity growth. Thissuggests that while small firms employ a large share ofworkers and create most jobs in developing economies theircontribution to productivity growth is not as high as thatof large firms.