Empirical exploration of a cohort of new technology-based firms in Sweden: what happens to them during their early years?

Book chapter, 2018

This chapter contributes to the current understanding of new technologybased firm growth. We find a surprisingly high survival rate (70 per cent) for the 2006 cohort of NTBFs at the end of 2014 and this rate is much higher than those reported in previous studies. Additionally, we find that very few firms experience high-growth during their first seven years (0.6 to 3 per cent from the cohort) and that, among the high-growth firms, employment growth and sales growth are highly correlated. To address the challenges of measuring growth for new and small firms, we show the
potential usefulness of the kink-point approach. Researchers can use this approach to capture much of the growth excluded in other measures, for example, the OECD measure.