Determinants of return on assets and capital structure - disparities depending on the region and the certified accountant
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abstract
Focused on a population that represents the majority of Portuguese business fabric –
the SME’s and a sample of SME’s located on the interior of mainland Portugal, this
paper raises the research question: “The region where the firm operates, as well as
its Certified Accountant (TOC), influences its Return on Assets (ROA)?” Based on
pecking order theory and static trade off theory as well as the determinants indicated
by them to explain the ROA, we applied a multivariate linear regression analysis to
identify such factors on a unique private database of companies’ financial data
collected s for the period 2006 to 2009 with 4096 observations. Along with traditional
factors we also tested the region and TOC responsible for SME’s books. The results
indicate that all the independent variables included in the multiple regression linear
model, have a negative coefficient, with the exception of the capital structure,
financial expenses, return on turnover, location of companies and TOC responsible
for accounting. These variables are statistically significant at 5% significance level
(except the variable TOC). There seems to exist differences between companies in its
profitability due to the TOC that is responsible for accounting.
