  We determine the distribution of size and growthrates of German business
firms in 1987-1997. We find a log-normal size distribution. The distribution of
growth rates has fat tails. It can be fitted to an exponential in a narrow
central region and is dominated by finite-sample-size effects far in its wings.
We study the dependence of the growth rate distribution on firm size: depending
on procedures, we find almost no dependence when the center of the distribution
is considered or, similar to previous work, a power-law when the wings are
weighted more strongly. Correlations in the growth of different firms are
essentially random. We determine the annual growth of the entire economy, and
successfully correlate it with a standard economic indicator of business cycles
in Germany. We emphasize possible problems related to the finite number of
firms comprised in our database and its short extension in time.
