????本文為與《時代》雜志的合作內容，原文最初發表于Time.com網站。

????一家企業通常能生存多長時間？這是個很難回答的問題，也是令幾乎所有企業家和經濟學家感到頭疼的問題。

????一個科學家小組似乎已經找到了至少一部分答案。他們發現，上市公司因并購、破產等原因而消亡的速度完全相同，且與其聲望和所屬行業沒有關系。這個結論多少有些出人意料。

????美國新墨西哥州圣菲研究所的科學家們經研究發現，這一神奇的數字約為10年。

????這項研究成果刊登在月刊《Journal of the Royal Society Interface》上。研究小組由三人組成，以馬德琳?德普為首，當時她還是一名本科生研究員。指導該小組的有博士后研究員馬庫斯?漢密爾頓、路易斯?貝登古爾教授和特聘教授杰弗里?韋斯特。

????該研究所博士后研究員漢密爾頓接受科學新聞網站Science Daily采訪時說：“我們給了德普一些基本數據，最難做的工作都是由她來完成的。”

????漢密爾頓指出，就計算經濟學家所說的公司死亡率而言，“現有的量化研究少的可憐”，而且目前的理論和實際證據所得出的結論相互矛盾。有些研究者認為，新公司消亡的可能性大于老公司，另一些人的看法則正好相反。

????他說：“我們想看看這一現象是否存在某種規律，或者說純粹是隨機事件。”

????如今，德普是加拿大不列顛哥倫比亞大學的一名研究生。當時她分析了標準普爾的Compustat數據庫，后者囊括了1950年以來所有的上市公司。德普采用的方法叫做生存分析。她和漢密爾頓等指導者發現，公司以往的業績，甚至產品，對公司死亡率并無影響。

????漢密爾頓指出：“不管你是賣香蕉的，還是造飛機的，或者從事其他任何行業。”

????有關該結論背后的原因并不屬于他們的研究范圍，但這些研究者猜想，生物體系以及資源競爭或許能提供某些答案。（財富中文網）

????譯者：Charlie

????This article is published in partnership with Time.com. The original version can be found here.

????It’s a big question, and one that nearly every entrepreneur and economist grapples with: how long do businesses generally survive?

????A group of scientists appear to have at least partially unlocked the answer, with a somewhat surprising result: publicly-traded companies die —through acquisitions, mergers, bankruptcy or other reasons — at the same rate irrespective of how well-established they are, or what they actually do.

????The magic number, a new study from scientists at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico reveals, is about 10 years.

????The study, published in the journal Royal Science Interfaceand conducted by three researchers, was led by then-undergraduate fellow Madeleine Daepp under the guidance of Marcus Hamilton, Professor Luis Bettencourt and Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West.

????“We gave her this basic idea, and she did the heavy lifting,” Hamilton, a postdoctoral research fellow at the institute, told Science Daily.

????Hamilton said “there is remarkably little quantitative work” on what economists call company mortality, and existing theory and evidence yield contradictory answers. Some researchers think younger companies are more likely to die than older ones, while others think just the opposite.

????“We wanted to see if there was any kind of standard behavior or if it was just random,” Hamilton said.

????Daepp, now a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, analyzed Standard and Poor’s Compustat — a database of every publicly traded company since 1950 — using a statistical method called survival analysis. What she and her advisers found is that a company’s mortality rate was not affected by its past performance or even its products.

????“It doesn’t matter if you’re selling bananas, airplanes, or whatever,” Hamilton said.

????The reason behind their findings remains beyond their study’s scope, but the researchers hypothesize that the biological world’s systems and competition for resources might provide some sort of insight.