A Influência dos Fatores Econômicos e Jurídicos sobre o Desempenho das Empresas do Agronegócio Brasileiro – Período de 2003 a 2005

This paper aims to develop and estimate a model to analyze the financial and economic performance, measured by accounting indicators, for Brazilian agribusiness firms. Using accounting information from 109 Brazilian agribusiness firms from 2003 through 2005, the paper evaluates how four structural characteristics (or factors) impact six accounting indicators. The four factors are: (1st) type of chain where each firm operates, (2nd) type of organizational structure (governance) adopted by the firm, (3rd) type of segment inside each chain where the firm operates, and (4th) type of firm’s fiscal organization. The six accounting indicators are: (a) level of financial debt, (b) long-turn eligible relationship over the equity, (c) gross margin, (d) ROA (Return on Assets), (e) ROE (Return on Equity), and (f) economic value added (EVA). MANOVA (Multivariate Anova) and panel regressions were run to verify if there was any significant influence on these factors over the variation of financial and economic indicators. Different impacts of the four explanatory variables over the six dependent variables, with distinct statistical significances, were found, which highlights how important it is to integrate accounting sheet analysis with chain theory to evaluate and to plan the finance and economic performance of Brazilian agribusiness firms.