DP1431 Corporate Growth and Profitability

• Paul A Geroski Stephen Machin Hossein Samiei
31 Jul 1996

This paper argues that current-period corporate growth rates reflect changes in current expectations about the long-run profitability of a firm. Using data on a balanced panel of 271 large, quoted UK firms over the period 1976?82, we report the existence of a positive, statistically significant and robust correlation between current-period growth rates and a natural measure of changes in current expectations about long-run profitability, namely changes in the stock market valuation of the firm.