This paper examines how the state of the economy when businesses begin operations affects their size and performance over the lifecycle. Using micro-level data that covers the entire universe of businesses operating in the U.S. since the late 1970s, I provide new evidence that businesses born in downturns start on a smaller scale and remain smaller over their entire lifecycle. In fact, I find no evidence that these differences attenuate even long after entry. Using new data on the productivity and composition of startup businesses, I show that this persistence is related to selection at entry and demand-side channels. In order to evaluate the relative importance of these two mechanisms, I build a model of firm dynamics that includes aggregate shocks, idiosyncratic productivity, and a demand accumulation process. When I mute the effects of selection mechanisms, I find that the average initial size differences are more procyclical, but they are less persistent over time. Finally, I use the model to quantitatively evaluate the role of the persistent effects of entry conditions in the propagation of the Great Recession. My model simulations indicate that the impact of the crisis on the 2008-2009 cohorts reduces aggregate employment by at least one percentage point in the following ten years.

This paper explores how macroeconomic conditions affect firm dynamics in Egypt between 1911 and 1948 by constructing an extensive dataset of all companies ever founded in this period. By exploiting Egyptian economy's specialization in cotton exports, I use fluctuations in the world price of cotton to identify the direct impact of the business cycle on firm entry, exit, and growth. The analysis shows that growth occurred primarily at the extensive margin. Firm entry was procyclical but exit and growth were both acyclical. The new evidence reveals cyclical selection into entry. Booms systematically selected low quality entrants, which were smaller, less likely to grow after entry, and frailer than other cohorts. Bust cohorts were larger, more likely to grow, and more robust. The quality differences were persistent over the firms' lifecycles. These new findings support a theory of firm dynamics with ex-ante heterogeneous firms, permanent productivity differences between cohorts, and economic adjustment through the extensive margin of entry.

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.

We use firm dynamics statistics on employment by age, entry, exit, and job flows to identify sources of business cycle fluctuations in the U.S. economy since 1980. We extend the Hopenhayn (1992) firm dynamics model by incorporating capital and debt accumulation to the firm's problem and savings to the consumer's problem. Analyzing the implications of unexpected productivity, credit, labor wedge, and investment wedge shocks for firm dynamics statistics, we show that (a) productivity shock accounts for the 1990-91 and 2001 recessions, and (b) productivity and credit shocks jointly account for the 1980-82 and 2007-09 recessions.

This volume presents six new papers on environmental and energy economics and policy in the United States. Rebecca Davis, J. Scott Holladay, and Charles Sims analyze recent trends in and forecasts of coal-fired power plant retirements with and without new climate policy. Severin Borenstein and James Bushnell examine the efficiency of pricing for electricity, natural gas, and gasoline. James Archsmith, Erich Muehlegger, and David Rapson provide a prospective analysis of future pathways for electric vehicle adoption. Kenneth Gillingham considers the consequences of such pathways for the design of fuel vehicle economy standards. Frank Wolak investigates the long-term resource adequacy in wholesale electricity markets with significant intermittent renewables. Finally, Barbara Annicchiarico, Stefano Carattini, Carolyn Fischer, and Garth Heutel review the state of research on the interactions between business cycles and environmental policy.

Research into firm growth has been accumulating at a terrific pace, and Alex Coad s survey of this multifaceted field provides a detailed, comprehensive overview of the latest developments. Much progress has been made in empirical research into firm growth in recent decades due to factors such as the availability of detailed longitudinal datasets, more powerful computers and new econometric techniques. This book provides an up-to-date catalogue of empirical work, as well as a coherent theoretical structure within which these new results can be interpreted and understood. It brings together a large body of recent research on firm growth from a multidisciplinary perspective, providing an up-to-date synthesis of stylized facts and empirical regularities. Numerous empirical findings and theories of firm growth are also surveyed and compared in order to evaluate their validity. Drawing on a vast and diverse body of research, this book will prove invaluable to students, academics, policy makers and practitioners with a need to keep abreast of studies in industrial organization, firm growth and management.

This publication focuses on business dynamics across eight countries (Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom) and over time, building upon the evidence collected in the framework of the OECD DynEmp project for 22 countries.