urbancow, istockphoto.com

While large companies are thought to promote wealth creation and economic growth, they often are actually dying and thus cannot, according Christopher Whalen in a Reuters blog that cites the research of SFI Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West, External Professor Luis Bettencourt, and their SFI collaborators.

The article, headlined "In Defense of Free Market Fundamentalism," cites a video interview of West posted recently by Edge.org, "Why Cities Keep Growing, Corporations and People Always Die, and Life Gets Faster." 

In Whalen's view, West “raises basic questions about whether industrial consolidation and the rise of global corporations is really good for society...in terms of long-term economic growth.”

Read the Reuters blog (June 10, 2011)

Watch West's Edge.org interview (May 23, 2011)