Firm-size distribution and price-cost margins in Dutch manufacturing

Industrial economists surmise a relation between the size distribution of firms and performance. Usually, attention is focused on the high end of the size distribution. The widely used 4-firm seller concentration, C4, ignores what happens at the low end of the size distribution. An investigation is presented of the extent to which the level and the growth of small business presence influence price-cost margins in Dutch manufacturing. A large data set of 66 industries for a 13-year period is used. This allows the investigation of both small business influences within a framework in which that of many other market structure variables is also studied. Evidence is shown that price-cost margins are influenced by large firm dominance, growth in small business presence, capital intensity, business cycle, international trade, and buyer concentration

TERMINAL ARCHAIC SETTLEMENT AND SUBSISTENCE IN THE CONNECTICUT RIVER VALLEY

The purpose of my dissertation research has been to test hypotheses concerning Terminal Archaic settlement and subsistence in the Connecticut Valley. The Terminal Archaic dates between 3700 and 2700 B.P. in the Northeast, and is a temporal designation within which certain artifact classes assigned to the Susquehanna Tradition are found. The Susquehanna Tradition in Connecticut is characterized by steatite bowls, ceramics, groundstone tools, and a variety of broadspear points.^ Studies of the Terminal Archaic have generally focused on burial practices. Few occupation sites of the Susquehanna Tradition in Connecticut had been adequately tested for function, seasonality, and duration of occupation. I report the excavation of occupation sites, the recovery of features, preserved food remains, and the analysis of stone tools which allowed for the evaluation of two hypotheses, explaining the distribution of diagnostic artifacts of the Susquehanna Tradition: (1) the specialized technological subsystem hypothesis, and (2) the complete cultural system hypothesis.^ I suggest that sites assigned to the Susquehanna Tradition reflect a complete cultural system, focused upon the exploitation of seasonally available wild plant and animal resources. Two cultural systems may in fact have coexisted in the Connecticut Valley during the Terminal Archaic, by practicing different procurement strategies. Populations possessing narrow-stemmed points were foragers, characterized by frequent residential moves across a variety of resources zones, with an emphasis upon interior uplands; populations using broadspear points were collectors, characterized by less frequent residential moves, focused upon riverine resources much of the year, with seasonal movements into the uplands.