Galtonian Regression, Company Age and Job Generation 1986–95

We study the growth of employment at the company level using a very large database of company accounts. More than 31 000 independent companies were studied over 1986–95, though we concentrate on the 8 103 companies which survived throughout the period. We find that smaller companies grew relatively to larger ones in each of the cyclical phases studied, 1986–89, 1989–92 and 1993–95. But their advantage diminished steadily. Despite the negative effect of size on employment growth, and downsizing amongst the largest companies, over half the net new jobs created in survivors were in companies with more than 500 employees.