Using the 1972 Enterprise Statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau, the labor productivity (receipts divided by employment) of large enterprises exceeded that of small firms by an average of 13.4% for 192 industries in manufacturing, trade, services, construction, and mining. The lowest productivities were typically found in firms with 10 to 99 employees. In almost a third of the industries, such firms had productivity below 80% of the average for their industries. There are implications for antitrust and for small business assistance policies.
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References
1.
MillerEdward, “The Extent of Economies of Scale: The Effects of Firm size on Labor Productivity and Wage rates”, Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 44 (Jan. 1978). No. 3, pp. 470–487.
2.
MillerEdward, “Selection Bias in the Estimation of Cost and Production Functions”, Journal of Economics and Business, Fall 1977.
3.
MillerEdward, “Labor Productivity in Large and Small Manufacturing Firms”, in Small Business, Productivity, Innovation and Taxation, Hearings before the Subcommittee on General Oversight and Minority Enterprise of the Committee on Small Business, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, First Session, October 17, 1979 (Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979). Also in Productivity Analysis at the Organizational Level, Edited by N.P. Adams and A. Dogramaci, Martinus Nyhoff, 1981.
4.
MillerEdward, “Wages in Large and Small Enterprises”, in above hearings.
5.
MillerEdward, “Manufacturing Wages as a Function of Company Size and Concentration” in above hearings, also to appear in the Spring 1981 Antitrust Bulletin.
6.
MillerEdward, U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1972 Enterprise Statistics Part 1, General Report on Industrial Organization, September 1977, Tables 5 and 8.
7.
MillerEdward, 1972 Economic Censuses Procedural History, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.1976.
