Cargando…

The mortality of companies

The firm is a fundamental economic unit of contemporary human societies. Studies on the general quantitative and statistical character of firms have produced mixed results regarding their lifespans and mortality. We examine a comprehensive database of more than 25 000 publicly traded North American...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Daepp, Madeleine I. G., Hamilton, Marcus J., West, Geoffrey B., Bettencourt, Luís M. A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4424689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25833247
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2015.0120
_version_ 1782370361548996608
author Daepp, Madeleine I. G.
Hamilton, Marcus J.
West, Geoffrey B.
Bettencourt, Luís M. A.
author_facet Daepp, Madeleine I. G.
Hamilton, Marcus J.
West, Geoffrey B.
Bettencourt, Luís M. A.
author_sort Daepp, Madeleine I. G.
collection PubMed
description The firm is a fundamental economic unit of contemporary human societies. Studies on the general quantitative and statistical character of firms have produced mixed results regarding their lifespans and mortality. We examine a comprehensive database of more than 25 000 publicly traded North American companies, from 1950 to 2009, to derive the statistics of firm lifespans. Based on detailed survival analysis, we show that the mortality of publicly traded companies manifests an approximately constant hazard rate over long periods of observation. This regularity indicates that mortality rates are independent of a company's age. We show that the typical half-life of a publicly traded company is about a decade, regardless of business sector. Our results shed new light on the dynamics of births and deaths of publicly traded companies and identify some of the necessary ingredients of a general theory of firms.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4424689
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2015
publisher The Royal Society
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-44246892015-05-20 The mortality of companies Daepp, Madeleine I. G. Hamilton, Marcus J. West, Geoffrey B. Bettencourt, Luís M. A. J R Soc Interface Research Articles The firm is a fundamental economic unit of contemporary human societies. Studies on the general quantitative and statistical character of firms have produced mixed results regarding their lifespans and mortality. We examine a comprehensive database of more than 25 000 publicly traded North American companies, from 1950 to 2009, to derive the statistics of firm lifespans. Based on detailed survival analysis, we show that the mortality of publicly traded companies manifests an approximately constant hazard rate over long periods of observation. This regularity indicates that mortality rates are independent of a company's age. We show that the typical half-life of a publicly traded company is about a decade, regardless of business sector. Our results shed new light on the dynamics of births and deaths of publicly traded companies and identify some of the necessary ingredients of a general theory of firms. The Royal Society 2015-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4424689/ /pubmed/25833247 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2015.0120 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © 2015 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Daepp, Madeleine I. G.
Hamilton, Marcus J.
West, Geoffrey B.
Bettencourt, Luís M. A.
The mortality of companies
title The mortality of companies
title_full The mortality of companies
title_fullStr The mortality of companies
title_full_unstemmed The mortality of companies
title_short The mortality of companies
title_sort mortality of companies
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4424689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25833247
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2015.0120
work_keys_str_mv AT daeppmadeleineig themortalityofcompanies
AT hamiltonmarcusj themortalityofcompanies
AT westgeoffreyb themortalityofcompanies
AT bettencourtluisma themortalityofcompanies
AT daeppmadeleineig mortalityofcompanies
AT hamiltonmarcusj mortalityofcompanies
AT westgeoffreyb mortalityofcompanies
AT bettencourtluisma mortalityofcompanies