The data described below is comprised entirely of
firms that have exited by way of bankruptcy. We are
therefore unable to investigate the issues of survival
versus failure; for this it would be necessary to have
matching information on both failures and survivors.
There is, however, much that can be learned from a
postmortem analysis of failures. The research question
and the answers we glean are different from the more
usual queries into survival and discontinuance. We propose
that the determinants of failure vary with firm age
at failure. To understand whether this is so, we examine
a sample of unsuccessful companies. The ability to dig
down into the causes of failure by studying the specific
details of failed businesses, rather than macroeconomic
indicators, is a unique strength of our data.