GEP Research Paper 99/09

Entry, Exit and Establishment Survival in UK Manufacturing

Richard Disney, Jonathan Haskel and Ylva Heden

This paper was subsequently published in the Journal of Industrial Economics , March 2003

Abstract

Despite the profusion of theoretical IO literature on the exit and entry of firms, there are few empirical studies. This paper provides evidence on entry, exit and survival for UK manufacturing establishments from 1974 to 1991 using the ARD database, a newly released dataset containing the universe of such establishments since 1972. We examine patterns of entry and exit across industries and over time. The paper utilises an augmented Cox proportional hazard to examine the survival of new plants in the UK in the 1980s. The results indicate a secular fall in cohort survival probabilities over time, and complex interactions between survival, age of firm and the size of the firm over time.

Issued in July 1999.

This paper is available in PDF format .