Les différences de performance financière entre les entreprises: résultats du marché français

The question of what drives firm profitability has been intriguing re-searchers for some time. At the heart of the debate lies the relative importance of the industry structure, corporate strategy, and firm heterogeneity on firm performance. The current paper reexamines this issue using the data from French publicly traded companies. The findings indicate some convergence [e.g. the role of industry and firm effects] and divergence [e.g. the role of diversification] with some of the studies that use data from the US market.