We study the evolution and cyclical dependence of the cross sectional distribution of firm level job creation rates from 1975 to 2004 for the Austrian private sector. The share of firms not adjusting has declined over time, but the share of entries, exits, growing and declining firms increased....

We introduce a novel measure of uncertainty that is based on a business survey in which firms are asked directly how certain or uncertain they are. So far the literature has tried to capture economic uncertainty indirectly by means of expectation errors or the extent of disagreement. Our direct...