Financial Ratio Analysis   Academic Research on Financial Ratio Analysis An empirical test offinancial ratio analysisfor small business failure prediction, Edmister, R. O. (1972). Journal of Financial and Quantitative analysis,7(2), 1477-1493. Financial ratios, discriminantanalysisand the prediction of corporate bankruptcy, Altman, E. I. (1968). The journal of finance,23(4), 589-609. A short history offinancial ratio analysis, Horrigan, J. O. (1968). The Accounting Review,43(2), 284-294. Some empirical bases offinancial ratio analysis, Horrigan, J. O. (1965).The Accounting Review,40(3), 558. A review of the theoretical and empirical basis offinancial ratio analysis, Salmi, T., & Martikainen, T. (1994). Sci. Finance. Abstract. This paper provides a critical review of the theoretical and empirical basis of four central areas of financial ratio analysis. The research areas reviewed are the functional form of the financial ratios, distributional characteristics of financial ratios, classification of financial ratios, and the estimation of the internal rate of return from financial statements. It is observed that it is typical of financial ratio analysis research that there are several unexpectedly distinct lines with research traditions of their own. Afinancial ratio analysisof commercial bank performance in South Africa, Kumbirai, M., & Webb, R. (2010). African Review of Economics and Finance,2(1), 30-53. This paper investigates the performance of South Africas commercial banking sector for the period 2005- 2009. Financial ratios are employed to measure the profitability, liquidity and credit quality performance of five large South African based commercial banks. The study found that overall bank performance increased considerably in the first two years of the analysis. Forecasting company failure in the UK using discriminantanalysisandfinancial ratiodata, Taffler, R. J. (1982). Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General), 342-358. This paper describes an operational discriminant model for the identification of British companies at risk of failure and discusses the results from its application since it was developed and its degree of intertemporal validity. It raises a number of issues related to the use of multivariate statistical techniques in the finance area and highlights some of the methodological weaknesses in extant studies. Improving the efficiency and effectiveness offinancial ratio analysis, Laurent, C. R. (1979). Journal of Business Finance & Accounting,6(3), 401-413. This paper analyses the use of financial ratio analysis in investigating a companys financial state. The objective of this paper is to describe research which, by using principal component analysis, identifies a small independent set of ten financial ratios which accounted for over 80% of the variance and hence information in an overall set of forty five financial ratios. Financial ratiosand the probabilistic prediction of bankruptcy, Ohlson, J. A. (1980). Journal of accounting research, 109-131. This paper presents some empirical results of a study predicting corporate failure as evidenced by the event of bankruptcy. Financial ratiosas predictors of failure, Beaver, W. H. (1966). Journal of accounting research, 71-111. The purpose of this paper is to show the prediction of failure since ratios are mainly used for predicting failures. An empiricalanalysisof usefulfinancial ratios, Chen, K. H., & Shimerda, T. A. (1981). Financial Management, 51-60. This paper analyses the roles of financial ratios in evaluating the performance and financial condition of a firm. The paper seeks to resolve the problem of which ratios to select by examining ratios found useful in recent empirical studies, reconciling the differences in them, and categorizing them by a substantially reduced number of seven basic financial factors suggested in the literature. Theanalysisand use offinancial ratios: a review article, Barnes, P. (1987). Journal of Business Finance & Accounting,14(4), 449-461.