ABSTRACT
The use of financial data and accounting numbers to analyze firms and their performance dates back almost 100 years. The accounting and finance literature is abundant with studies that attempt to explain or predict certain behaviors or actions. Most of the earlier studies concentrated on bankruptcy explanations and predictions. Only since the 1960s have researchers attempted to analyze mergers by using accounting information, particularly financial ratios. Most of these studies do not focus on a particular industry, but on all bankruptcies or mergers over a specific period of time.
