The Time Series Properties of Financial Ratios: Lev Revisited

This paper re‐evaluates the time series properties of financial ratios. It presents new empirical analysis which explicitly allows for the possibility that financial ratios can be characterized as non‐linear mean‐reverting processes. Financial ratios are widely employed as explanatory variables in accounting and finance research with applications ranging from the determinants of auditors' compensation to explaining firms' investment decisions. An implicit assumption in this empirical work is that the ratios are stationary so that the postulated models can be estimated by classical regression methods. However, recent empirical work on the time series properties of corporate financial ratios has reported that the level of the majority of ratios is described by non‐stationary, I (1), integrated processes and that the ratio differences are parsimoniously described by random walks. We hypothesize that financial ratios may follow a random walk near their target level, but that the more distant a ratio is from target, the more likely the firm is to take remedial action to bring it back towards target. This behavior will result in a significant size distortion of the conventional stationarity tests and lead to frequent non‐rejection of the null hypothesis of non‐stationarity, a finding which undermines the use of these ratios as reliable conditioning variables for the explanation of firms' decisions.     

METHODOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF NON-NORMALLY DISTRIBUTED FINANCIAL RATIOS: A COMMENT

This comment argues that proposals to replace financial ratio analysis with regression analysis of the separate ratio components are unnecessary and misguided. Financial ratios are used to predict other variables and not to predict their own components. These ratios also help deal with the size scale problem inherent in regular accounting data, but regression error terms would suffer from the same size effect as the regular data. The actual statistical distribution of financial ratios is an open, important question, but that question in itself does not call for an abandonment of fmancial ratios.     

Factors Affecting the Probability of Bankruptcy: A Managerial Decision Based Approach

The majority of classification models developed have used a pool of financial ratios combined with statistical variable selection techniques to maximize the accuracy of the classifier constructed. Rather than follow this approach, this article seeks to provide an explicit economic basis for the selection of variables for inclusion in bankruptcy models. This search to develop an economic theory of bankruptcy augments the existing bankruptcy prediction literature. Variables which occur in bankruptcy probability expressions derived from the solution of a stochastic optimizing model of firm behaviour are 'proxied' by variables constructed from financial statement data. The random nature of the lifetime of a single firm provides the rationale for the use of duration or hazard-based statistical methods in the validation of the derived bankruptcy probability expressions. Results of the validation exercise confirm that the majority of variables included in the empirical hazard formulation behave in a way that is consistent with the model of the firm. The results highlight the need for developments in the measurement of earnings dispersion.     

Methodological issues in the use of financial ratios

It appears that the extensive use of financial ratios by both practitioners and researchers is often motivated by tradition and convenience rather than resulting from theoretical considerations or from a careful statistical analysis. Basic questions, such as: Is the control for firm size, a major objective of the ratio form, called for by the theory examined; what is the structural relationship between the examined variables and size; and what is the optimal way to control for industry-wide factors, are rarely addressed by users of financial ratios. The major purpose of this study is to discuss the conditions under which conventional tools, such as financial ratios and measures of industry central tendency, achieve the intended objectives of analysis (e.g., size control). Various issues related to financial analysis, such as spurious correlation due to a common denominator, the choice of an optimal size variable, and the treatment of outlier observations, are also examined.     

Financial factors and firm growth: evidence from financial data on Taiwanese firms

We investigate the possible predictability of firm growth in Taiwan using cross-sectional data of financial factors for the years 1997 and 2003 via principal component analysis. Our results reveal that the 18 financial variables (sales growth rate, total assets, total sales, return on assets, return on equity, gross margin, operating cost minus depreciation divided by sales plus other trading income, acid test ratio, debt–equity ratio, time interest earned, average receivables per average daily sales, inventory, average payables per average daily sales, working capital, working capital as a fraction of total assets, long-term liabilities as a fraction of total assets, and sales as a fraction of net worth of the firm) that we employ bunch together into five different financial ratios for the years 1997 and 2003 that are stable between these years. These financial factors are short-term liquidity, return on investment, long-term liquidity, firm size and capital turnover. Regressing these ratio groups (extracted principal components) on firm growth, we find return on investment in the year 1997 was positively and significantly related to firm growth, while long-term solvency was negatively related to firm growth. In addition, smaller firms tended to grow faster. By 2003, larger firms grew faster than smaller ones and short-term liquidity was positively and significantly related to firm growth, while return on investment was no longer a significant determining factor. Our findings suggest that firms that finance internally or do not rely too heavily on indebtedness may end up growing slower during boom periods but they are the ones that survive and outperform after the bust.     

UNDERSTANDING SIZE AND THE BOOK‐TO‐MARKET RATIO: AN EMPIRICAL EXPLORATION OF BERK'S CRITIQUE

Because they are scaled by price, the ability of size (i.e., the market capitalization of a firm) and the book‐to‐market equity ratio to determine expected returns may, according to Berk (1995) , reflect only a simultaneity bias. The two‐stage least squares approach is used to control for this bias and to investigate the economic meanings of these variables. We discover that size and the book‐to‐market ratio contain distinct and significant components of financial distress, growth options, the momentum effect, liquidity, and firm characteristics. Our findings support Berk in his contention that that size and the book‐to‐market ratio reflect a combination of different economic mechanisms that are misspecified in the expected return process.     

An Analysis of the Underreported Magnitude of the Total Indirect Costs of Financial Distress

In this paper we examine 1,041 ongoing firms over the time period 1982–92. Using quarterly data for the detection and measurement of the magnitude of the indirect costs of financial distress, we find three important explanatory factors: (a) the distinctiveness of the pattern of increasing financial distress over time, (b) the degree of leverage in the capital structure and (c) the size of the firm. For those firms with a distinctive pattern of increasing financial distress over time, the average annual losses as a percentage of market value is –10.3%. The maximum loss is –76%. Even if the firm never fails, its market value can be severely impacted by the presence of the indirect costs of bankruptcy over time. This study finds a significantly positive relationship between Altman's Z-score and the firm capital investment growth rate. This relation holds after controlling for other variables such as leverage, firm size and market/book ratio. This implies that lost investment opportunities may be also an important part of the total indirect costs of financial distress, which appear now to be much larger than previously recorded.     

The Components of Accounting Ratios as Co-integrated Variables

Time series of accounting variables may often be non-stationary, i.e. they have a unit root, as in the common example of a random walk. This can lead to spurious results in time series regression analysis which uses such variables. The problem is overcome if the variables are co-integrated. This paper examines and tests the proposition that, where the variables are expressed in logarithmic form, calculating a ratio may capture the effects of co-integration. Thus, accounting ratios (calculated in logarithmic form) might be stationary, and therefore exempt from the econometric pathology associated with their component variables.     

The Impact of Liquidity on Debt Maturity After a Financial Crisis: Evidence from the Gulf Cooperation Council Region

This article contributes to the existent literature on corporate debt maturity by studying a new channel through which firms may mitigate the effects of a major economic downturn such as the 2008 global financial crisis. More specifically, using a sample of 208 listed firms in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, we find that an increase in firms’ current ratios after the crisis is associated with an increase in long-term financing. We also find that a financially constrained firm can still access long-term financing if its current ratio after the crisis is beyond a specific threshold. Additionally, we highlight the differences in the typical drivers of debt structure between GCC countries and industries.     

AN EXCHANGE RATIO DETERMINATION MODEL FOR MERGERS: A NOTE

One of the most important financial and economic issues involved in corporate mergers is the determination of the exchange ratio between the shares of the acquiring firm and the acquired firm. The model presented in theis paper is based on the dividend growth model. Since growth expectations are crucial in an exchange ratio negotiation, the model derived here, which explicitly incorporates these growth expectations, is relevant. In contrast, Larson and Gonedes' exchange ratio expressions are in terms of price-earnings multiples. The model presented here provides an exchange ratio expression for the buying firm and one for the selling firm. Both expressions are a function of one variable—the post-merger growth rate as perceived by each party. There are two important features of the model: (1) it provides boundary values for negotiation; and (2) it can be used to study the effect of firm characteristics on the bid-and-asked exchange ratios.     

Firm Size,Book-to-Market Ratio,and Security Returns: A Holdout Sample of Financial Firms

Fama and French (1992) document a significant relation between firm size, book-to-market ratios, and security returns for nonfinancial firms. Because of their initial interest in leverage as an explanatory variable for security returns, Fama and French exclude from their analysis financial firms, thus creating a natural holdout sample on which to test the robustness of their results. We document that the relation between firm size, book-to-market ratios, and security returns is similar for financial and nonfinancial firms. In addition, we present evidence that survivorship bias does not significantly affect the estimated size or book-to-market premiums in returns. Our results indicate data-snooping and selection biases do not explain the size and book-to-market patterns in returns.     

Accounting Ratios and the Cross‐section of Expected Stock Returns

Under clean‐surplus accounting, the log return on a stock can be decomposed into a linear function of the contemporaneous log return on equity, the contemporaneous log dividend–price ratio (if the stock pays a dividend), and both the contemporaneous and lagged values of the log book‐to‐market equity ratio. This paper studies the implications of this decomposition for the cross‐section of conditional expected stock returns. The empirical analysis reveals that the log accounting ratios capture cross‐sectional variation in both the conditional mean and conditional variance of log stock returns, which is consistent with the decomposition. It also brings fresh insights to the relation between firm size (market equity) and conditional expected stock returns. The evidence indicates that the conditional median return increases with firm size, while the conditional return skewness decreases with firm size. Empirically, the skewness effect outweighs the median effect, leading to the well‐documented inverse relation between size and average returns. The results of out‐of‐sample tests suggest that investors could use the information provided by the observed values of the log accounting ratios to formulate more effective portfolio strategies.     

Capital structure with dividend restrictions

This paper develops a symmetric information model of a new firm which incorporates a constraint on dividend payments known as a balance sheet test. This test solves moral hazard problems that arise in credit markets where complete contracting over future actions is not possible. This constraint breaks down the traditional symmetric information result of separability between financial and real variables, and thus maximizing shareholder returns in this setting is not equivalent to maximizing total firm value. As a consequence, more profitable firms, those with a higher average product of capital, will have lower debt/equity ratios. Debt/equity ratios will be positively correlated with the firm's physical capital and negatively correlated with the firm's market power.     

The Time Series Properties of Australian Accounting Data

This paper reports the results of an examination of the time series properties of a range of accounting numbers and ratios which may be associated with firm valuation. The work extends earlier research, which has concentrated on earnings or its derivatives, and which has found that earnings numbers follow a random walk or similar stochastic process. The tests reported in this paper suggested that, during the 25 year period studied, annual changes in a wide range of accounting variables also were, for the most part, random. Significant departures from randomness occurred only in variables where there were a priori reasons for believing that serial dependence would exist.     

Financial reporting and corporate political connections: An analytical model of interactions

We analyze the interactions between accounting institutions and corporate political connections (CPCs). We present a model where a costly policy depends on the perceived economic condition of a firm. This policy and the valuation of the firm by capital market participants create incentives for the firm to manipulate its financial reports. A politician has some discretion over the policy and can use it to favor a connected firm. Our analysis reveals that the firm’s financial reporting is determined by the interplay of an accounting standard, enforcement strictness, and the salience of the policy for the firm. The possibility to manipulate the financial reports imposes an upper boundary on the value of political connectedness which does not exist if only truthful reporting is possible. The reason is that a low credibility of reported figures leads only to a weak revision of the policy. In general, the value of CPCs is highest when the financial reporting regime evenly splits between firms in good and bad economic condition. Our analysis further suggests that while connected firms generally report being in good condition more often than non-connected firms do, the effect of CPCs on absolute reporting manipulation depends on policy salience. If policy salience is low, connected firms exhibit a higher absolute degree of manipulation than non-connected firms do; the opposite holds if policy salience is high.     

The relationship between earnings' yield,market value and return for NYSE common stocks: Further evidence

The empirical relationship between earnings' yield, firm size and returns on the common stock of NYSE firms is examined in this paper. The results confirm that the common stock of high E/P firms earn, on average, higher risk-adjusted returns than the common stock of low E/P firms and that this effect is clearly significant even if experimental control is exercised over differences in firm size. On the other hand, while the common stock of small NYSE firms appear to have earned substantially higher returns than the common stock of large NYSE firms, the size effect virtually disappears when returns are controlled for differences in risk and E/P ratios. The evidence presented here indicates that the E/P effect, however, is not entirely independent of firm size and that the effect of both variables on expected returns is considerably more complicated than previously documented in the literature.     

PORTFOLIO PERFORMANCE AND THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SYSTEMATIC RISK,FIRM SIZE AND PRICE-EARNINGS RATIO: THE CANADIAN EVIDENCE

While some American studies relate portfolio performance to P/E ratios, others reject such a hypothesis or find evidence of a confounded P/E-size effect. This prevents conclusive inferences. Canadian markets are structurally different from American ones; thus American evidence may not apply to Canadian stocks. This study examines how interaction between P/E ratio, beta and firm size affects the portfolio performance of Canadian stocks. The results show a relative support for the firm size effect, even after proper adjustment for risk and alternate change in control variables. This evidence is not uniform across different quarters of the year but not restricted to year-end effect. The findings also demonstrate a positive correlation among the three variables. However, one cannot generalize conclusions since the analysis may not capture all other pertinent factors.     

Voluntary Financial Disclosure By Australian Listed Companies

As Australia becomes an increasingly important equity market, the level of information disclosed by Australian listed companies is likely to be of interest to a growing audience of prospective investors. This study tests the relation between five firm-specific variables drawn from agency theory and the general level of financial information voluntarily disclosed by companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. The five variables are foreign listing status, firm size; leverage, assets-in-place and type of audit firm. The empirical evidence suggests that foreign listing status, firm size, and type of audit firm are significantly related to the level of information voluntarily disclosed by listed companies.     

Meta-analysis of the impact of financial constraints on firm performance

A large number of studies have investigated the relationship between financial constraints and firm performance. However, due to heterogeneity in study design factors, such as choice of measures for constraints and performance, control variables, estimation methods and study sample, the empirical results have been mixed. To mitigate this issue, this paper reports a meta-analysis of the association between financial constraints and firm performance. To assess the overall direction of the relationship and the sources of heterogeneity, we apply meta-analytic methods to 26 studies (providing 189 effect sizes) on the association between financial constraints and financial performance in listed companies. Our result shows that, overall, there is a positive relationship between financial constraints and firm performance. In addition, meta-regression results suggest that return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) as measures of financial performance, and external finance and size as measures of financial constraints, have a significant negative impact on the relationship between financial constraints and firm performance relative to the mean impact on effect size. Similarly, all of North America and Asia as regional differences, control of size and corporate governance as control variables, and journal quality as strength of results, also have a significant negative impact. On the other hand, market value as a measure of financial performance, and the Whited & Wu index as a measure of financial constraints, have significant positive impact relative to the mean impact. Similarly, cross-country and Europe as regional differences, and publication status as strength of results, all have significant positive impact. Given that firm performance is of fundamental importance to investors, this study therefore helps researchers and policymakers to understand the variation in the empirical results on the impact of financial constraints.     

The Determinants of Financial Health of Asian Insurance Companies

Previous studies of financial health of insurance companies are mainly focused on insurers operating in the United States and developed economies. This article focuses on the solvency of general (property‐liability) and life insurance companies in Asia using firm data and macro data separately. It uses different classification methods to classify the financial status of both general and life insurance companies. With the exception of Japan, failures of insurers in Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan are nonexistent. We find that, first, the factors that significantly affect general insurers' financial health in Asian economies are firm size, investment performance, liquidity ratio, surplus growth, combined ratio, and operating margin. Second, the factors that significantly affect life insurers' financial health are firm size, change in asset mix, investment performance, and change in product mix, but the last three factors are more applicable to Japan. Third, the financial health of insurance companies in Singapore seems to be significantly weakened by the Asian Financial Crisis. As the insurance industry in different Asian economies is at different stages of development, they require different regulatory guidelines.