Journal of Economic and Social Measurement - Volume 17, issue 1

Authors: DeBerg, Curtis L. | Shriver, Keith A. | Wheeler, Stephen W.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The prior research on the usefulness of current cost data has concentrated on the incremental information content of current cost income measures by adopting a capital market perspective. The present study complements the prior research and focuses on the substitution …and supplement effects of current cost balance sheet ratios by utilizing an individual user approach to financial analysis. This paper examines the distributional properties of current cost ratios in order to ascertain whether such properties are similar to the properties of historical cost ratios for firms in the primary manufacturing and retail industries. Furthermore, the relative rankings of the firms based on the current cost ratios are compared with the relative rankings based on the historical cost ratios for various fundamental financial dimensions. The findings indicate that substitution or supplement effects may exist for current cost ratios in both cross-sectional and intertemporal analyses of the financial constructs of firms. These effects are most evident for the leverage dimension on a cross-sectional basis and the profitability dimension on an intertemporal basis. Furthermore, the effects are more prevalent in the manufacturing industry as compared to the retail industry. These results suggest that the usefulness of current cost data may be on a firm-specific basis relative to the average performance of the industry containing that firm. In summary, the findings are consistent with both the predictive ability goal of external financial reporting and the evaluation of managerial performance objective of internal managerial reporting. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-1991-17101

Citation: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1-16, 1991

Authors: Abbott III, Thomas A.

Article Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-1991-17102

Citation: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 17-44, 1991

Authors: Buss, Terry F. | Lin, Xiannuan | Popovich, Mark G.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Researchers conducting economic base, targeted industry, business survival, or new business start-up research must be able to enumerate all firms in local economies. Dun and Bradstreet market identifier files (and their derivative public use database, U.S. Enterprise and Establishment Microdata …file), state unemployment insurance administrative files (ES202), and direct enumeration (e.g. telephone Yellow Pages, etc) are becoming more widely used for enumeration, but little is known about their comparative representativeness. Using rural Iowa as a case study, the three databases were compared. Results showed that each database was biased in its own way and therefore not strictly comparable to the others. The study concluded that the databases would need to be supplemented if high levels of accuracy are required. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-1991-17103

Citation: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 45-55, 1991