Shakeouts, Concentration and Firm Survival

在最初的企业数量增加之后，新兴产业通常会经历企业数量急剧下降的“洗牌期”。震荡反映了市场结构的突然变化，因此解释它们有望阐明塑造市场结构的力量。在对市场结构和技术变革之间的联系进行理论化的长期传统之后，最近提出了以技术变革为特征的理论来解释经济震荡。该项目侧重于开发和测试一种新的以技术变革为特征的洗牌理论，该理论对企业生存的影响与竞争理论截然不同。开发了新模型的初步版本，并推导了其关于企业生存的独特含义。这些与竞争理论的公司生存含义形成对比。为了检验不同的理论，收集了汽车、轮胎、电视机、打字机和青霉素这五种产品的所有生产商进入和退出日期的数据。这五种产品受到了相当大的创新，并经历了严重的洗牌。除了研究经历过严重淘汰的产品外，还分析了两种尚未经历淘汰的技术进步产品：激光和石化苯乙烯。对于为什么这些产品没有经历淘汰，提出了一些假设，并制定了一项计划，利用激光和苯乙烯的进入和公司生存的详细数据来测试这些假设。

After an initial buildup in the number of firms, new industries commonly experience a ~shakeout~ in which the number of firms declines sharply. Shakeouts reflect an abrupt change in market structure, and thus explaining them promises to illuminate the forces shaping market structure. Following a long tradition of theorizing about the connections between market structure and technological change, recent theories featuring technological change have been proposed to explain shakeouts. This project focuses on the development and test of a new theory of shakeouts featuring technological change that has quite different implications regarding firm survival than the competing theories. A preliminary version of the new model is developed and its distinctive implications concerning firm survival are derived. These are contrasted with the firm survival implications of the competing theories. In order to test the alterative theories, data are collected on the entry and exit dates of all the producers of five products that were subject to considerable innovation and experienced severe shakeouts: autos, tires, televisions, typewriters, and penicillin. In addition to studying products that experienced severe shakeouts, two technologically progressive products that have not yet experienced shakeouts are analyzed: lasers and petrochemical styrene. Hypotheses are advanced for why these products have not experienced shakeouts and a plan is laid out to test these hypotheses using detailed data on entry and firm survival for lasers and styrene.