Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Arouri, Hassan
Author-Email:  hassen.arouri@gmail.com
Author-Workplace-Name: National Institute of Statistics, Tunisia
Author-Name: Ben Youssef, Adel
Author-Email: adel.ben-youssef@unice.fr
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, and GREDEG-CNRS
Author-Name: Quatraro, Francesco
Author-Email: francesco.quatraro@unito.it
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Torino, and Collegio Carlo Alberto
Author-Name: Vivarelli, Marco
Author-Email: vivarelli@merit.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT, and Universita’ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano
Title: Drivers of growth in Tunisia: Young firms vs incumbents
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the growth dynamics of young 
	 small firms (in contrast with larger and older incumbents) in a 
	 developing country context, using a unique and comprehensive dataset of 
	 non-agricultural Tunisian companies. Our results suggest that 
	 significant differences between young and mature firms can be found as 
	 far as the drivers of their growth are concerned. The key finding being 
	 that - while consistently with the extant literature Gibrat's law is 
	 overall rejected - the negative impact of the initial size is 
	 significantly larger for young than mature firms. This result has 
	 interesting policy implications: since smaller young firms are 
	 particularly conducive to employment generation, they can be considered 
	 good candidates for targeted accompanying policies addressed to sustain 
	 their post-entry growth.
Classification-JEL: O12, L26
Keywords: firm's growth, young firms, Gibrat's law, Tunisia
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 20180406
Number: 2018-019
File-URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2018/wp2018-019.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2018019