Technology Criticality, Advanced Material, Firms' Longevity

This dataset contains comprehensive survival, structural, and technological information on 17,997 exited firms operating in the Advanced Materials Technology (AMT) sector across 58 countries. It is designed to examine how institutional conditions and technological environments shape the longevity of firms engaged in chemicals, plastics, specialty materials, pharmaceuticals, coatings, and related subsectors classified under the NACE industrial system.

The unit of analysis is the “mortal” firm—a firm that exited the industry and had at least five employees at the time of exit. Firm longevity is measured as the number of days (or years) between establishment and confirmed exit, with right-censoring applied for firms still active at the end of the observation period. The dataset spans firms established between 1971 and 2019, offering multi-decade survival patterns within technology-intensive industries.

Three core predictors structure the dataset: value-chain position, legal structural complexity, and technology criticality. Value-chain position is coded from upstream to downstream stages, while legal structural complexity ranges from sole proprietorships to fully incorporated public limited companies. Technology criticality is represented through a weighted 1–10 scale capturing economic importance, supply-chain risk, strategic value, regulatory implications, and substitutability of material technologies.

The dataset also includes extensive firm-, industry-, and location-level controls, such as group size, industry competition, consolidation status, ownership dispersion, revenue, employment, OECD membership, post-2007 crisis indicator, and city-level mortality ratios. These enrich the analytical capacity of the data for modelling institutional, competitive, and technological pressures on firm exit.

The dataset supports advanced statistical modelling, particularly Accelerated Failure Time (AFT) survival analysis, and is suitable for exploring nonlinear, interaction, and contingency effects. It offers valuable insights for scholars of industrial dynamics, strategic management, innovation systems, and policy makers concerned with the resilience, competitiveness, and structural vulnerabilities of firms in critical material technologies.