Journal of Applied Finance & Banking

The Relative Financial Efficiency of Brazilian Firms and American Firms in the Manufacturing Sector: A Ratio Analysis

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• Abstract

  This paper evaluates the relative financial efficiency of twenty three matched-pairs of U.S. firms and Brazilian (BR) firms. In this study, efficiency is measured in terms of profitability, debt management, asset management, and liquidity management. Paired comparison is employed and ten hypotheses are tested on the basis of the defined ratios. Because matched pairs are used, an appropriate test is the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranked test. All the data for the study were compiled by the author from Mergent on Line. These include the most recent five-year time-series data that were available in 2013 for all the ten ratios that were tested. The analysis presented in this paper indicates the absence of any statistically significant differences between the two sets of firms with regard to most of the ratios examined, suggesting that the U.S and the Brazilian firms are similar to each other with respect to their financial efficiency. The only exception is that BR firms have higher return on equity (ROE) ratios than the United States firms.