The impact of age on firm performance: A literature review

In the last thirty years the link between firm age and performance has fascinated a lot of scholars. In fact, since 1990 there has been a major attention on management studies on this topic. But the debate on this theme have produced mixed results, which resulted in extensive economics discussion, albeit without a systemic vision. The firm age literature has not yet developed a paradigm. Starting to a simple question: “age benefits performance?”, the purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of the existing literature. The critical examination of the relation between firm age and performance provides new insights for executives.