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A Squared Rank Assessment of the Difference Between US and European Firm Valuation Ratios

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Abstract

Financial ratios are useful in determining the financial strengths and weaknesses of firms. The most commonly used methods for comparing firms through financial ratios are multivariate analysis of variance and multiple discriminant analysis. These methods have been very often used for inferential purposes when the underlying assumptions (e.g. random sampling, normality, homogeneity of variances … ) are not met. A method for comparing firm financial ratios is proposed, it is based on squared ranks and does not require any particular assumptions. The proposed method is devised to explicitly consider the possible difference in variances and to take also into account the dependence among the financial ratios. It is robust against skewness and heavy tailness. This aspect is very important because usually financial ratios, even after removing outliers, are highly skewed and heavy tailed. An application for studying the difference between US and European firms is discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance, University of Calabria, Via Bucci 0C, 87036, Rende (CS), Italy

    Marco Marozzi

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  1. Marco Marozzi
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Correspondence to Marco Marozzi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

    Marco Corazza  & Claudio Pizzi  & 

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Marozzi, M. (2014). A Squared Rank Assessment of the Difference Between US and European Firm Valuation Ratios. In: Corazza, M., Pizzi, C. (eds) Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02499-8_19

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