Thermodynamics of firms' growth.
Thermodynamics of firms' growth.
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DOI：
10.1098/rsif.2015.0789
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发表时间：
2015-11-06
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Plastino A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Zambrano E;Hernando A;Fernández Bariviera A;Hernando R;Plastino A
公司增长和公司规模的分布是一个备受关注的话题。在本文中，我们证明了一个基于最大熵原理的热力学模型，具有动态先验信息，可以充分描述企业成长的动态和分布。我们的理论框架是针对西班牙公司的综合数据库进行测试的，该数据库在很大程度上涵盖了西班牙的经济活动，总共有1155 142家公司在整整十年的时间里不断发展。我们展示了帕累托定律的经验指数，一个经常在大型企业的排名分布中观察到的规则，可以用经济系统创建/摧毁企业的能力来解释，并且可以用来衡量资本主义经济的健康状况。事实上，我们的模型预测，当指数大于1时，企业的创建受到青睐；当它小于1时，则倾向于企业的毁灭；当它等于1（符合齐夫定律）时，系统处于完全的宏观经济均衡，意味着企业的“自由”创造和/或毁灭。对于中小型企业，其动力状态发生了变化，整个分布不能再用单一的简单解析形式拟合，需要进行数值预测。我们的模型构成了关于企业整体经济演变的完整预测框架的基础。这种结构可以潜在地用于开发模拟和测试假设情景，例如经济危机或对具体政策措施的反应。
The distribution of firms' growth and firms' sizes is a topic under intense scrutiny. In this paper, we show that a thermodynamic model based on the maximum entropy principle, with dynamical prior information, can be constructed that adequately describes the dynamics and distribution of firms' growth. Our theoretical framework is tested against a comprehensive database of Spanish firms, which covers, to a very large extent, Spain's economic activity, with a total of 1 155 142 firms evolving along a full decade. We show that the empirical exponent of Pareto's law, a rule often observed in the rank distribution of large-size firms, is explained by the capacity of economic system for creating/destroying firms, and that can be used to measure the health of a capitalist-based economy. Indeed, our model predicts that when the exponent is larger than 1, creation of firms is favoured; when it is smaller than 1, destruction of firms is favoured instead; and when it equals 1 (matching Zipf's law), the system is in a full macroeconomic equilibrium, entailing ‘free’ creation and/or destruction of firms. For medium and smaller firm sizes, the dynamical regime changes, the whole distribution can no longer be fitted to a single simple analytical form and numerical prediction is required. Our model constitutes the basis for a full predictive framework regarding the economic evolution of an ensemble of firms. Such a structure can be potentially used to develop simulations and test hypothetical scenarios, such as economic crisis or the response to specific policy measures.