This paper examines the patterns of firms growth and exit for the Spanish manufacturing sectors over the period 1990-1995. The empirical work analyses firm failure rates as well as the mean of
the distribution of realized growth rates distinguishing between the sample of nonfailing firms and the sample of all firms, failing and nonfailing. Attention is directed at identifying a set of characteristics, in particular size and age of firms, systematically related to the patterns of firm growth and exit. Our main findings are the following: 1) failure rates decline with size and age of firms; 2) the mean growth rate of successful firms decline with size and age; 3) when failing firms are integrated into the analysis there are no significant differences in the mean growth rate across the age and size of firms.