Start-up size and post-entry performance: the case of tourism services in Italy

A large and comprehensive longitudinal database is used to identify the start-up of new firms in the Italian tourist industry and their subsequent post-entry performance. Analysed in particular is the link between the survival of hotels, restaurants, and catering firms in each Italian region and their start-up size. By using logit estimation, it is found that for eighteen out of twenty regions the relationship has the expected sign, although only for twelve regions and the country as a whole did it turn out to be statistically significant.