How the mighty are fallen: Back in 2015, Mark Perry noted that only 12% of the 1955 Fortune 500 companies were still on the list in 2015. He gives American Motors, Brown Shoe, Studebaker, Collins Radio, Detroit Steel, Zenith Electronics, and National Sugar Refining as examples of corporations that were on the list in 1955 but in 2015. Newcomers to the list since 1955 include Facebook, eBay, Home Depot, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Office Depot and Target.
Innovation and Growth: In another AEI blog, James Pethokoukis reports on research by Leonid Kogan, Demitris Papanikolaou, Amit Seru, and Noah Stoffman that measures innovation in terms of patents issued to companies from 1926 to 2010 and the stock market response to those patents. The combination gives the a way to measure the economic significance of the innovation contained in the patent.
Creative Destruction: The face of innovation only an economist could love: All the above is fine and good, but it should be obvious that creative destruction is destruction nonetheless and the creativity of it is probably lost on the people having their livelihoods destroyed.
