Measuring the Performance of Large Australian Firms
Melbourne Institute Working Paper No. 03/98
Date: January 1998
Author(s):
Abstract
This paper is concerned with the measurement of company performance in the context of the IBIS panel data set of large Australian firms. The analysis provides a framework which distinguishes between: 'static', 'comparative static' and 'dynamic' measures; and 'partial', 'multiple' and 'total' measures. The chapter demonstrates that all of these measures are related to economic measures of firm profitability. Thus, some time is spent in defining profits and, in doing so, developing the linkages between economic and accounting concepts of performance. Finally, it relates the discussion of the conceptual issues of measuring performance to the information available in the IBIS database.