Schumpeterian Fade: Has It Become Harder For Newer Firms To Join The Elite?

Abstract

A Schumpeterian perspective on sustained superior firm performance contrasts two classes of contestants. Entrepreneurs in newer firms take risks and pursue fresh discoveries in the hope of developing sustainable advantages. Meanwhile, the established elite work to renew their superiority and prevent Schumpeterian overthrow, sometimes by exercising dynamic capabilities. Analyses of US Compustat firms from 1967-2018 reveal temporal shifts in this battle. Newer entrants have become less likely to achieve sustained superiority and the ages at which firms first accomplish this have risen dramatically. In contrast, while the rate at which established firms renewed sustained superiority fell through the 1980s, it rose sharply thereafter. As the path to initial greatness has become rockier, the rich have increasingly stayed rich, evidence of Schumpeterian fade.