In this study, U.S. manufacturing firms' short-term financial management measures including net working capital, inventory turnover and receivables turnover are examined over the 1971-2005 period. The impacts of firm size, profitability, tangibility, market-to-book ratio, leverage, as well as...

In this study, U.S. manufacturing firms' profitability measures including profit margins and returns on equity are examined over the 1971-2005 period. We find strong support for the “insulation hypothesis” as our results show that the profitability ratios and the valuation multiples of U.S....