Will most of us be working for giant enterprises by 2028 ? q

Various economic theories yield quite opposite predictions about the changing size of enterprises and establishments and the purpose of this essay is to present some stylized facts to begin to resolve some of these theoretical confusions. The estimates for this purpose cover a period of almost four decades. They show that average establishment size has decreased since the late 1960s, that the number of establishments per enterprise has leveled off since the early 1980s, and that the average size of enterprises reveals an undulating pattern with a sharp upturn at the end of the century due to the impact of the merger wave. Considerable attention is paid to the causal factors underlying these changes, particular in reference to the conflicting theoretical evidence. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: L10; L22; D40