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Small Business, Entrepreneurship, and Industrial Dynamics

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Are Small Firms Important? Their Role and Impact

Abstract

Most firms are small and don’t grow very much. Small firms have lower productivity and shorter life expectancy, pay lower wages, and provide fewer benefits and less employment security than large firms. They create a lot of new jobs, but they also often fail, so that their role as net creators of employment is unclear. Nevertheless, a strong argument can be made that small firms, especially entrepreneurial ones, are important — indeed, indispensable — for long-term economic growth and economic welfare.

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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Carlsson, B. (1999). Small Business, Entrepreneurship, and Industrial Dynamics. In: Acs, Z.J. (eds) Are Small Firms Important? Their Role and Impact. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5173-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5173-7_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-7356-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-5173-7

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