Assessing Progress in Research on Industrial Evolution and Economic Growth: A Review Article

This article reviews a new three-volume collection of previously published articles on how industry structures change, edited by David Audretsch and Steven Klepper. Central themes in the chosen contributions are summarized, and the disproportionate emphasis on relatively new rather than clearly seminal articles is noted. A more detailed analysis is undertaken on how the chosen articles illuminate the determinants of incumbent firms' survival and growth advantages, i.e., scale economies, first-mover advantages, organizational competence, and growth-affecting strategies such as preemptive innovation and mergers.