The impact of ownership changes and age effects on plant exits in UK manufacturing, 1974–1995

This paper uses the individual plant level records of the UK government’s ABI respondents database (or ARD) for the UK manufacturing sector (1974–1995) to consider how ownership effects (particularly changes in ownership) and other variables linked with the age of the plant determine the probability of plant closure. Using a hazard model, we find changes in ownership to be significant and for the most part negatively related to the probability of plant survival.