Further Guidance:

1. Clarify what are superstar firms and what criteria are we using?
2. The Top 10% of firms in the world are categorized by Size or ROI or …. Please explain.
3. What are the characteristics of superstar firms?
4. What is the Effect of globalization?
5. It’s not a case study. The essay is more of showing your understanding of superstar firms.
6. Causes behind superstar firms.
7. Support analysis with a case or multiple cases

8. Please split the essay into sections and choose informative headings for each section.

9. In the section on quality at birth, it is better to sharpen the focus a bit more by distinctly
showing that (1) firms are different at birth (initial firm heterogeneity); (2) the initial
differences are persistent (remain over time); and (3) and initial differences have a lasting
impact.

10. Please separate the discussion of the productivity hypothesis from your discussion of scale
economies. First, discuss the productivity-based explanation of superstars in a subsection
and then in the following section highlight the idea that certain factors such as globalisation
have accelerated the winner-take-most dynamics (a separate subsection).

11. Include an economic graph to demonstrate the effect of productivity on the cost structure of
the firm.

12. Fully discuss the importance of demand-side scale economies and demand creation. Explain
that without adequate demand the supply-side scale economies remain unfulfilled. You
need to elaborate that productivity and supply-side economies of scale considerations do
not alone explain the rise of star firms. One needs to refer to demand-side factors to
develop a satisfactory theory of star firms.

13. Carefully link the section on the effect of initial characteristics with the remaining sections of
the essay. Each section should build on the previous sections. You make some links, but the
narrative should be stronger. How do initial characteristics, productivity dispersion, and
supply-side and demand-side scale economies re-enforce each other to give rise to star
firms?

14. Support factual claims in the essay by referring to the academic empirical literature.

15. Take a hybrid approach with your graphs. Include important graphs in the text and the rest
in an appendix. Graphs must be fully integrated into the analysis.

16. Avoid using too many sub-headings to support the flow of the argument.

17. Please don’t use ChatGPT, as it will be detected as plagiarism.

18. Stay close to the word limit. You can exceed the word limit by 10 to 15%.

Supplementary articles:

1 . Superstar firms, market power, and corporate inequality: The role of intangible capital

https://voxeu.org/article/role-intangible-capital-explaining-superstar-firms
2. Big data helps large firms grow even bigger

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/articles/big-data-helps-large-firms-grow-even-bigger/?
utm_source=mitsloantwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=firmgrowth

3. The decline of high-growth entrepreneurship

https://voxeu.org/article/decline-high-growth-entrepreneurship

4. High growth firms and technological knowledge

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01070569/document

5. What is driving superstar companies

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/overview/in-the-news/whats-driving-superstar-companies-
industries-and-cities