Stat II Regression Correlation Analysis (profitability)

Paper critique can be found here.

Source paper can be found here.

The author does a great job not seeking self-fulfillment of their hypotheses, actually finding some to have opposite relations than originally predicted before statistical analysis. By separating several independent variables (purpose, type, objective, etc) against the more quantitative dependent var (profitability as definted by ROA, ROE, OPE), the author is able to analyze the importance (or lackthereof) of each of the determinants on the dependent variable without having to test them one at a time (this is accomplished through the use of a multiple regression model which delivers separate regression coefficients for each variables effect on the dependent). Moreover, the author draws from several other papers from peers domestic and abroad (see references). The biggest downside of the paper is madeup by the majority of the conclusions being simple statistical significance checks for correlation coefficients between the determinants and profitability variables, without going too in-depth with original analysis as to why this relationship may or may not hold up in the real world (i.e. why these variables actually have these effects in these Chinese companies).