What Does Fortune 500 Turnover Mean?

Dane Stangler, S. Arbesman
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引用次数: 10

Abstract

In The Princess Bride, the lead kidnapper, Vizzini, dismisses missteps in his ill-fated scheme with a frustrated exclamation, “Inconceivable!” At length, his soft-spoken mercenary, Inigo Montoya, ventures: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” An equivalent asymmetry in the world of economic analysis is the use of turnover on the Fortune 500 list. For years, many people have cited turnover — and ostensibly rising turnover — as a proxy for positive economic churn and rapid changes in the U.S. economy that are supposed to reflect underlying strengths in innovation and productivity. We find that, while annual turnover on the list has, on average, increased since the early 1980s, it doesn’t quite mean what many people think it means. On average, annual turnover (the number of spots on the list that change as companies enter and exit the top 500) was moderate in the late 1950s, then lower and steadier through the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning in the early 1980s, annual turnover rose to historically high levels; by the second half of the 1990s, it touched new highs. After 2000, however, turnover returned to the moderate levels of the late 1950s. It’s easy to paint a narrative around these numbers that coincides with the Great Moderation and the productivity revolution of the 1990s and early 2000s. But reality isn’t so simple. For one thing, turnover among big companies is not a new phenomenon. The late 1950s, as mentioned, experienced moderately high levels of turnover (at least compared to subsequent periods). Prior research has revealed considerable churn among big companies in the early decades of the twentieth century as well. Higher turnover in the 1980s did appear to reflect value creation as corporate conglomerates, ravaged by inflation and competition, were taken apart and remade into separate, more efficient companies. But, in the 1990s, higher turnover reflected (a) methodological changes in how the Fortune list was compiled, and (b) a mergers and acquisition boom, concentrated in a handful of sectors, that destroyed perhaps as much value as it created. Turnover is less a broad economic trend than a discrete temporal and sectoral phenomenon. Still, we point out that the Fortune 500 list — and its changes over time — does provide a meaningful window into American capitalism, even if it doesn’t mean what many think it means. It reflects a kaleidoscopic process of sectoral change and greater efficiencies at the level of individual firms, as well as some less sanguine economic developments. The latter includes the downside of higher volatility — the high M&A volume in the late 1990s included the largest number of the worst deals of the past thirty years — and the deleterious implications for consumers and households. Finally, it appears as if performance among the Fortune 500, as measured by return on equity, did not necessarily improve and, if anything, became more volatile over time.
财富500强企业离职意味着什么?
在《公主新娘》中,主要的绑架者维齐尼(Vizzini)对他不幸的计划中的失误不屑一顾,沮丧地感叹道:“不可思议!”最后,他那说话温和的雇佣兵伊尼戈·蒙托亚大胆地说:“你一直在用这个词。我不认为这是你想的那个意思。”在经济分析领域,同样不对称的是《财富》500强企业的营业额。多年来,许多人都把员工流动率——以及表面上不断上升的员工流动率——作为美国经济积极动荡和快速变化的代表,这应该反映出美国经济在创新和生产力方面的潜在优势。我们发现,虽然自20世纪80年代初以来,榜单上的年营业额平均有所增加,但它的含义并不完全像许多人认为的那样。平均而言,在20世纪50年代末,年营业额(随着公司进入和退出500强而变化的名单上的位置数量)适中,然后在20世纪60年代和70年代更低,更稳定。从20世纪80年代初开始,年营业额上升到历史最高水平;到20世纪90年代后半期,该指数再创新高。然而,2000年后,营业额恢复到20世纪50年代末的中等水平。人们很容易将这些数据与上世纪90年代和本世纪初的大缓和和生产率革命联系起来。但现实并非如此简单。首先,大公司之间的人员流动并不是一个新现象。如前所述,20世纪50年代末经历了适度的高营业额(至少与随后的时期相比)。先前的研究表明,在20世纪最初的几十年里,大公司也发生了相当大的变动。20世纪80年代较高的营业额似乎确实反映了价值创造,因为受到通货膨胀和竞争蹂躏的企业集团被拆分并重组为独立的、效率更高的公司。但是,在上世纪90年代,更高的营业额反映了(a)《财富》榜单编制方法的变化,以及(b)集中在少数几个行业的并购热潮,其所破坏的价值可能与创造的价值一样多。流动与其说是一种广泛的经济趋势,不如说是一种离散的时间和部门现象。尽管如此,我们还是指出,《财富》500强榜单及其随时间的变化,确实为了解美国资本主义提供了一个有意义的窗口,即使它的含义与许多人认为的不同。它反映了部门变化的千变万化过程和个别公司一级效率的提高,以及一些不那么乐观的经济发展。后者包括波动性加大的负面影响——上世纪90年代末的高并购交易量包括过去30年来最糟糕的交易——以及对消费者和家庭的有害影响。最后,以净资产收益率衡量的《财富》500强企业的表现似乎并没有必然改善,而且随着时间的推移,甚至变得更加不稳定。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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