Impact of uncertainty and sunk costs on firm survival and industry dynamics

This paper examines the role played by uncertainty and sunk costs on the timeseries fluctuations in industry structure as captured by the number of firms and establishments, and concentration. Using an extensive dataset covering 267 U.S. manufacturing industries over a 30-year period, our estimates show that time periods of greater uncertainty, especially in conjunction with higher sunk costs, results in: (i) decrease in the number of small firms and establishments; (ii) less skewed size distribution of firms and establishments; and (iii) marginal increase in industry output concentration. Large establishments are virtually unaffected. We also control for technological change and our estimates show that technical progress decreases the number of small firms and establishments in an industry. While past studies have emphasized technological change as a key driver of industry dynamics, our results indicate that uncertainty and sunk costs play a crucial role. Our findings could be useful for competition policy, study of firm survival, models of creative destruction, evolution of firm size distribution, and mergers and acquisitions.