Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 10 No. 4 1988
A comparison of the financial characteristics of December and non-December year-end companies
Abstract
Researchers often restrict their sample selection to either December or non-December Compustat companies. However, no one has rigorously investigated the implications of this restriction. This paper compares financial characteristics of December and non-December year-end companies. December year-end firms are larger and have smaller betas as compared to companies with non-December year-ends. There are some strong industry concentrations in December year-ends, most notably in the regulated or recently deregulated industries. Retail sales firms have primarily non-December year-ends. A comparison of leverage ratios does not reveal a stable systematic difference between December and non-December year-end companies.
- DOI
- 10.1016/0165-4101(88)90008-0
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 335-344
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref