The persistence of corporate profits in the Federal Republik of Germany

This chapter, on the persistence of corporate profits in in Germany, is organized as follows: Section I presents the empirical model and describes the econometrics for the stimation of the parameters. Section II introduces the data sample, shich consists of profit data form 299 German stock companies in the period 1961-82, and Section III provides empirical results. Section IV explains the differences inthe explanation of prifit rates between firms attributabel to firm- and indutry-specific factors. Section V provices empirical evidence aboutt the degree of significance of selected firm-specific factors that explain permanent profit rates. Section VI draws some conclusions about firm profitability in Germany