A Comparison of the Financial Characteristics of U.S. and German Manufacturing Firms

The U.S. and Germany rank #1 and #3, respectively, in the world, in terms of the total amount of international trade. U.S. and German firms compete with one another for a larger market share in other countries and in each other’s local markets. And yet, there are no published studies that compare the financial management practices of U.S. and German firms. In this paper, we make a contribution to the finance literature on this subject by comparing the financial characteristics of U.S. and German manufacturing firms. Our findings provide valuable insights for corporate financial managers and for investors who invest in these countries. Using a sample of 1166 firms, we find that the financial characteristics of U.S. manufacturing firms differ significantly from those of German manufacturing firms. MANOVA test results indicate that U.S. firms exhibit higher liquidity, lower debt, higher profitability, and lower total assets turnover. These findings are also supported by the logistic regression results. We suggest that better financial performance of U.S. firms could be attributed to more business-friendly employment laws and lower levels of unionization in the United States.