An Empirical Test Of The View Of Inventory As A Liability IN Explaining Financial Distress

Abstract

This study reports a first attempt in a financial distress context to test the extreme JIT and TOC view that inventory is a liability. We compared inventory levels and the change in inventory for healthy and financially distressed manufacturing firms. We also compared the explanatory power of logistic regression models including traditional accounting ratios to that of models including accounting ratios created by viewing inventory as a liability. We found some support for the extreme view of some JIT and TOC proponents that traditional inventory should be considered a liability.