The American economy has always relied on disruptive upstart entrepreneurs challenging established older firms. However, over the last twenty years, it turns out that the established companies have been on the rise. A new study by Ian Hathaway of consulting firm Ennsyte Economics and Robert Litan of the Brookings Institute breaks down data from the Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics and found that, over the last two decades, the economy has had a growing share of old, established, mature companies. Their first chart shows the proportion of firms of different ages among all firms. The Business Dynamics ... (full story)