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Assessing Industry Risk by Ratio Analysis.

Haim Falk1; James A. Heintz2

1 Associate Professor of Accounting at McGill University. 1 · 2 Assistant Professor of Accounting at Indiana University. 2

The Accounting Review 1975

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a technique for scaling industries according to degree of risk. In recent years a considerable amount of research has been performed examining the relationship between financial ratios and company risk. The bulk of this research has concentrated on company factors. In spite of the apparent interest by researchers in the industry element of company risk, research dealing directly with the classification of industries according to risk or other characteristics has been limited. Risk is affected both by the characteristics of the corporation itself and by the fact that the corporation is part of a given industry with characteristics of its own. The authors deal primarily with the second aspect of company risk--the industry factor. More specifically, they develop a ranking of industries according to degree of risk based on particular industry characteristics as reflected in industry financial ratios. Such a ranking has potential value to investors in evaluating opportunities and to researchers in studying the relationships among company and industry risk, and security ranking and performance.

DOI
10.2308/tar-4491958
Volume
50 (4)
Pages
758-779
Language
en
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