MANAGERIAL TENURE, BUSINESS AGE, AND SMALL BUSINESS TURNOVER

This article explores a Census Bureau survey of the small business sec tor, the 1982 Characteristics of Business Owners survey, which contain s information on both small businesses and the managers running them. A number of patterns are documented. For example, among small business es of the same age, the probability that a business fails and the prob ability that a business is sold are both initially decreasing in the t enure of the manager at the business. Among businesses with managers w ho have the same tenure at their business, the probability that a busi ness fails is decreasing in the age of the business.