The Rise and Fall of Business Firms

S. V. Buldyrev is Professor of Physics at Yeshiva University. His research interests span theoretical and computational statistical physics and its applications to various complex systems, physical chemistry, material science and biological physics. F. Pammolli is Professor of Economics and Management at Politecnico di Milano. He served as the Founding Rector of the IMT School for Advanced Studies and is currently a member of the Investment committee of the European Fund for Strategic Investments at the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg. His research interests span the analysis of a variety of complex industrial and technological systems, with particular reference to pharmaceuticals and the life sciences. M. Riccaboni is Professor of Economics and Director of the Ph.D. Track in Economics, Networks and Business Analytics at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca. His current research focuses on industrial organization, network analysis and the economics of innovation, with particular reference to the life sciences. H. E. Stanley is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Polymer Studies at Boston University. He is one of the founding fathers of econophysics, a pioneer of interdisciplinary science and has made seminal contributions to the field of statistical physics. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a recipient of numerous awards throughout his career.

• Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Empirical regularities; 3. Innovation and the growth of business firms: a stochastic framework; 4. Testing our predictions; 5. Testing our assumptions; 6. Conclusions; 7. Appendices; References; Author index; Subject index.

'This is a superb and fascinating book. The distribution of firms' growth rates exhibits a large number of regularities, including some that are very hard to explain. The authors are pioneers in that enterprise, combining empirical and theoretical work. This team of economists and physicists provides a model for a future way to do economics.' Xavier Gabaix, Pershing Square Professor of Economics and Finance, Harvard University