(p. A2) A recent study called into question whether size should matter at all when comparing businesses and their contribution to job creation.
The paper–co-authored by University of Maryland economist John Haltiwanger and two Census Bureau economists–confirmed that small businesses create more net new jobs, per employee, than do bigger businesses.
But the effect vanishes once each company’s age is taken into account. It is young businesses that outperform old ones, according to the paper. Size isn’t the important factor.
If you control for age, “you wipe out that effect” of small businesses creating a disproportionate share of net new jobs, says Prof. Haltiwanger. “There’s no systematic relationship. If anything it goes the opposite way of conventional wisdom.”
For the full commentary, see:
CARL BIALIK. “THE NUMBERS GUY; Sizing Up the Small-Business Jobs Machine.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., OCTOBER 15, 2011): A2.
The Haltiwanger paper referred to in the passage above is:
Haltiwanger, John C., Ron S. Jarmin, and Javier Miranda. “Who Creates Jobs? Small Vs. Large Vs. Young.” NBER Working Paper #16300, August 2010.