Price/book, price/sales and debt/equity better predictor than P/E and Beta ?

From the Financial Analysts Journal May/June 1997: 75-80
"A Fundamental Analysis of Korean Stock Returns"

Abstract: In an investigation of the relations between stock returns and fundamental variables in Korea, annual stock returns during the 1982-93 period were positvely related to book-market, sales-price, and debt-equity ratios, negatively related to firm size, and not significantly related to the earnings-price ratio or beta.

These results add to the growing international evidence that value stocks outperform growth stocks over long periods. Also for Korean stocks, book-market and sales-price ratios are more efficient indicators of value than the earnings-price ratio, and the debt-equity ratio is a more reliable proxy for risk than beta.