Finance

Equity ratio

Business

Demography

Mathematics

Nonprobability sampling

Debt ratio

Monetary economics

Working capital

Sociology

Economics

Current ratio

Debt-to-capital ratio

Return on equity

Population

Debt

Market liquidity

Return on assets

Stock exchange

Statistics

Profitability index

Capital structure

Leverage (statistics)

Debt-to-equity ratio

International Journal of Emerging Markets

Purpose This study is conducted to determine the factors that affect profitability in Chinese listed companies (by using financial ratios). Four independent variables liquidity, intangible assets, working capital and company leverage were empirically tested for their relationships with profitability besides two control variables which are firm size and company efficiency. Design/methodology/approach This study used secondary data extracted manually from the annual reports of non-financial Chinese listed companies on the Shanghai stock exchange ( http://www.szse.cn/ ); the data set covers 100 companies during the period of 2017–2019, and a random selection method was used in order to achieve credibility and fairness as much as possible. Findings The findings show firm size, working capital and intangible assets have positive and significant relationships with profitability [return on assets (ROA) and earnings per share (EPS)]. Positive working capital is important to lower the cost of capital and improve compa...

Determinants of profitability in Chinese companies