| Abstract: | Summary Four firm employment concentration ratios were estimated for manufacturing industries. Basic sources of data were employment figures collected by the 1930, 1950 and 1963  General Economic Census .Due to untractable changes in census classification, historical comparability was restricted to about 70–80% of the working population in manufacturing.Absolute and relative trends were analyzed; it appeared that for the period 1930–1963 as a whole concentration in Dutch manufacturing did not change significantly.The significance of the degree of openness of the Dutch economy for the calculated concentration ratios has been considered.For 24 historically comparable industries with less than four firms each there was net entry while the share of the largest firm generally declined.The hypothesis of a negative relation between concentration and growth was tested and only partly confirmed. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AX102008 00002 |
