Start-up size,survival and growth of new firms in the Italian tourism industry

Abstract

This paper analyses the link between the survival and growth of new firms in Italian tourism services and their start-up size. While in most regions the likelihood of survival is found to be significantly influenced by start-up size, Gibrat's Law turned out to hold for most regions, in contrast to the results reported by several authors for other sectors and countries. This implies that whereas larger newborn firms in the tourism sector have in most Italian regions a higher probability of survival than their smaller counterparts, the probability of a proportionate change in size during the relevant period is the same for all firms in most regions.