The first, third, and fifth columns of this table give the results of annual median (least absolute deviation)regressions for net profit margin, return on equity, and sales growth on the Governance Index, G, measured in the previous year, and the book-to-market ratio, BM. The second, fourth, and sixth columns restrict the sample to firms in the Democracy (G < 5) and Dictatorship (G > 14) portfolios and include as regressors a
dummy variable for the Democracy Portfolio and BM. The coefficients on BM and the constant are omitted from the table. The calculation of G is described in Section II. Net profit margin is the ratio of income before extraordinary items available for common equity to sales; return on equity is the ratio of income before extraordinary items available for common equity to the sum of the book value of common equity and deferred taxes; BM is the log of the ratio of book value (the sum of book common equity and deferred taxes) in the previous fiscal year to size at the close of the previous calendar year. Each dependent variable is net of the industry median, which is calculated by matching the four-digit SIC codes of all firms in the CRSP-Compustat
merged database in December of each year to the 48 industries designated by Fama and French [1997]. The coefficients and standard errors from each annual cross-sectional regression are reported in each row, and the time-series averages and time-series standard errors are given in the last row. Significance at the 5 percent and 1 percent levels is indicated by * and **, respectively. All coefficients and standard errors are multiplied by 1000.