Company size distribution for developing countries

We analyze company size distribution for developing countries using the framework proposed by Ramsden and Kiss-Haypál [Physica A 277 (2000) 220]. Although this distribution does not fit developing countries data as good as it does to developed ones, the parameters of the distribution (θθ and ρρ) for developing countries are remarkably different to those for developed countries. This result supports the hypothesis that parameter θθ plays a role analogous to the temperature of the economy, which could be related to the level of economic development, as reported previously by Saslow [Am. J. Phys. 67 (1999) 1239]. Also, this supports the hypothesis that ρρ is related to the competitive exclusion in economics, as ρρ tending to zero implies the competition free limit case where company size distribution is predicted to be a power-law, as reported by Takayasu and Okuyama [Fractals 6 (1998) 67]. Finally, we report the goodness of fit for two functions: a finite-size scaling and a log–normal. We found that these functions fit the data better in some cases. However, this is not in itself sufficient evidence that those functions are an appropriate representation of the phenomenon.