Compliance level with IFRS disclosure requirements across 12 African countries: do enforcement mechanisms matter?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hela Borgi ◽  
Yosra Mnif

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of enforcement, and more particularly government quality and the stock market development, on compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) disclosure requirements in 12 African countries. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a self-constructed compliance index from content analysis and apply panel regressions for a sample of 606 firm-year observations during the period 2012 to 2014. Findings This analysis illustrates a high level of disparity of information provided by companies, possibly due to the complexity of the selected standards and the depth of information required. The findings reveal that government quality and stock market development have a positive and significant effect on compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements in Africa. This implies that enforcement plays a key role in improving the compliance level across African countries. Practical implications These findings should be of interest to government policymakers, professional bodies, regulators and standard setters who are concerned with compliance and financial reporting transparency at a country level. It should be a signal to call for more effort to strengthen the enforcement of accounting standards and capital market supervision by putting in place some disciplinary actions for non-compliance with IFRS. The authors also believe that the results may help African policymakers and regulators enhance the level of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements by enforcing accounting standards. Originality/value This research contributes to the compliance literature by investigating the effect of enforcement on compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements in the African countries, an understudied context where enforcement is a challenge.

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios Tsagkanos

Purpose The purpose of this paper, in contrast to other studies, is to examine an indirect relationship in terms of the effect of income inequality with stock market development in countries South of the Euro-zone during the period 2002-2013. Design/methodology/approach The author adopts a new econometric method, the Improved Augmented Regression Method, to obtain bias-reduced and stationary-corrected estimators. Findings The results reveal a negative relationship that puts into doubt the recovery of growth. Originality/value The new econometric methodology leads to a novel suggested policy on the need for reforms adopting a low-income tax rate system and reinforcement of export-oriented productivity. This conclusion is strengthened by the respective relationship in USA.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 1371-1392
Author(s):  
Yosra Mnif ◽  
Hela Borgi

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the association between two corporate governance (CG) mechanisms, namely, the board of directors and the audit committee (AC) and the compliance level with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandatory disclosure requirements across 12 African countries. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a self-constructed checklist of 140 items to measure the compliance with IFRS mandatory disclosure requirements (here after, COMP) of 202 non-financial listed firms during the 2012–2016 period. This paper applies panel regressions. Findings The findings reveal that CG mechanisms play an important role in enhancing compliance with IFRS in the African context. The results show that board independence, AC independence and the number of meetings held by the AC are positively associated with COMP. Regarding expertize, this paper find that AC industry expertise along with accounting financial expertise is associated with a higher level of COMP than accounting financial expertize alone. These results show the importance of the CG mechanisms to enforce African companies to fully comply with IFRS required disclosures. Practical implications The findings should give a signal to supervisory authorities that more effort is necessary to enforce IFRS across African countries if the introduction of IFRS is to bring the expected benefits to investors and other users. Hence, the lack of full compliance should remain a concern for regulators, professional accounting bodies and policymakers. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by providing further insights that, within the African region an understudied context, extend current understanding of the association between CG mechanisms and COMP.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sin-Yu Ho ◽  
Nicholas M. Odhiambo

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the macroeconomic drivers of stock market development in Hong Kong during the period 1992Q4-2016Q3. Specifically, it investigates the impact of banking sector development, economic growth, inflation rate, exchange rate, trade openness and stock market liquidity on stock market development. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses quarterly time-series data covering the period 1992Q4-2016Q3, which have been obtained from various reliable sources. The study uses the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing procedure to identify both the long- and short-run macroeconomic drivers of stock market development in Hong Kong. Findings We find that banking sector development and economic growth have positive impacts on stock market development, whereas the inflation rate and the exchange rate have negative impacts on stock market development both in the long and short run. In addition, the results show that trade openness has a positive long-run impact but a negative short-run impact on stock market development. Originality/value Despite the phenomenal growth of stock market in Hong Kong, there are, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no relevant studies on the macroeconomic drivers of stock market development in Hong Kong. Therefore, this paper endeavours to enrich the literature by examining the macroeconomic drivers of stock market development in Hong Kong during the period 1992Q4-2016Q3.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rabia Khatun ◽  
Jagadish Prasad Bist

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between financial development, openness in financial services trade and economic growth in BRICS countries for the period 1990–2012. Design/methodology/approach An index for financial development has been constructed using principal component analysis technique by including banking sector development, stock market development, bond market development and insurance sector development. For the robustness of the result, the long-run cointegrating relationship amongst the variables has been analyzed. Findings Overall financial development has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. To take the full advantage of openness in financial services trade, countries need to put more emphasis on the development of their stock markets, bond markets and the insurance sector. The result shows that openness in financial services trade has a positive impact on economic growth when the stock market, bond market and insurance sector are included in the system. Research limitations/implications The policy implication of the findings is that policymakers should focus more on developing all four areas of finance to get the full benefit of the financial system on the process of economic growth. Originality/value The authors have constructed the better indicators of financial development in the case of BRICS economies. Most of the studies in BRICS economies have measured the development of the financial sector as either banking sector development or stock market development. However, the present study includes all four areas of finance (banking sector development, stock market development, insurance sector development and bond market development) into account.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabamita Dutta ◽  
Deepraj Mukherjee

Purpose – During recent times, the stock market has emerged as a major financial institution of an economy. Yet, cross-country differences, in size and role of stock market, persist. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlation between cultural traits and the development of the stock market in a country. Considering multiple dimensions of culture, identified in the literature by Hofstede (1980/2001) and World Value Survey, the authors construct the hypotheses: trust, a key cultural trait, should positively influence stock market development; uncertainty avoidance, Hofstede’s cultural dimension should negatively influence the development of the stock market; and individualism, an alternate cultural dimension of Hofstede’s measures, should be positively correlated with stock market development. The cross-country empirical analysis supports the hypotheses. The results hold for multiple measures of stock market development. Design/methodology/approach – This paper investigates the correlation between various cultural traits and the development of the stock market in a country. Specifically, the authors consider three different cultural trait measures. The authors consider a cross-sectional analysis of an extensive number of countries. While all explanatory variables of interest are considered over the period 2000-2007, the authors consider 2008 figures for the dependent variables of interest, financial development. Ordinary least squares is considered as the benchmark specification. Robust regression has been considered as part of robustness analysis. The authors mention throughout the paper that the results stress on significant association between the variables, only. Findings – The empirical results support the hypotheses. The first measure, trust, is positively associated with stock market development of a nation. Statistically, for one standard deviation rise in trust (1 SD=37.5), stock market capitalization will go up between 11 and 19 percentage points. Uncertainty avoidance, the second measure is negatively correlated and statistically, the impact is much greater. Finally, the third measure, individualism, is positively correlated with stock market development. Statistically, for one SD rise in individualism (SD=23.9), stock market capitalization will rise by 23 percentage points. Originality/value – Existing literature has stressed the role of cultural traits – trust, uncertainty avoidance, individualism – in the promotion of entrepreneurship, innovation and growth. Since most startups need to raise capital in order to implement their new ideas, cross-country heterogeneity in the strength of capital markets may lead to important differences in entrepreneurship and productivity growth across economies (Greenwood and Jovanovic, 1990; Jayaratne and Strahan, 1996; Levine, 1997; Beck et al., 2000; Guiso et al., 2004). Yet, the link between stock market development and cultural traits has not been established in the literature. This paper aims to fill this missing link.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ojonugwa Usman ◽  
Umoru Adejo Yakubu

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of corporate governance practices on the post-privatization financial performance of the firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) over the period 2005-2014. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a two-step dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation technique for 27 privatized firms by considering a wide range of controlled variables such as managerial shareholdings, board composition, debt financing and stock market development. Findings The empirical result suggests that the improvement in the firms’ financial performance is attributed to good corporate governance practices through effective board composition, debt financing (leverage) and stock market development. The result further shows no substantial evidence to support that managerial shareholding improves firms’ financial performance. Research limitations/implications Therefore, based on the empirical findings of this study, the authors recommend that the firms need to maintain the optimum board composition and the ratio of debt to share capital as well as developing the stock market to function effectively. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing literature in several ways: (1) the first time that the role of corporate governance is considered in explaining the post-privatization financial performance of firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange; (2) the paper applies a two-step dynamic system GMM estimation technique, proposed by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998) to control for the serial correlation and heterogeneity, which remain the major weaknesses of the panel data modeling in the literature.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-206
Author(s):  
Saganga Mussa Kapaya

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to empirical evidence by recognizing the importance of stock markets in the financial system and consequently its causality to economic growth and vice versa. Design/methodology/approach The study used the autoregressive distribute lag model (ARDL) with bound testing procedures, the sample covered quarterly time-series data from 2001q1 to 2019q2 in Tanzania. Findings The results suggest that stock market development have both negative and positive causality for both short-run dynamics and long-run relationship with economic growth. Economic growth is found to only cause and relate negatively to liquidity both in the short-run and in the long-run. The results show predominantly a unidirectional causality flow from stock market development to economic growth and finds partial causality flow from economic growth to stock market development, as represented by stock market turnover which proxied liquidity. Originality/value The use of quarterly data to reflect more realistically the dynamics of the variables because yearly data may sometimes cover-up specific dynamics that may be useful for prediction and policy planning. The study uses indices to capture general aspects within the stock market against economic growth as an intuitive way to aggregate the stock market development effects.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pramod Kumar Naik ◽  
Puja Padhi

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the impact of stock market development on the economic growth for a panel of 27 emerging economies using annual data over the period from 1995 to 2012. Design/methodology/approach – A second-generation panel unit root test developed by Pesaran (2007) has been used to test the stationary properties of the data series. To achieve the study objectives and to mitigate the endogeneity problem that exists in the given model, the authors use a dynamic panel “system GMM” estimator. The authors also use a heterogeneous panel causality test proposed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) to examine the direction of causality among the variables. Findings – The empirical findings indicate that stock market development significantly contributes to economic growth. Further, a unidirectional causality running from stock market development to economic growth has been found. This finding is consistent with the supply-leading hypothesis. Besides stock market development, it is also evident that macroeconomic variables, such as investment ratio, trade openness and exchange rates, have significant impact on economic growth. Research limitations/implications – The findings suggest that a well-functioning stock market, a more globalized economy and increasing aggregate investment can potentially foster the economic growth in those emerging economies. Originality/value – Unlike other studies, this study constructs three alternate composite indices along with the individual indicators of stock market development and applies robust panel econometric techniques to establish more reliable results.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 357-364
Author(s):  
Paul Uzum ◽  
Ailemen Ochei Ikpefan ◽  
Alexander Ehimare Omankhanlen ◽  
Jeremiah Ogaga Ejemeyovwi ◽  
Benjamin Ighodalo Ehikioya

Africa has underdeveloped stock markets that have failed to meet the continent’s capital needs, such as rapid economic growth. This research analyzes the key drivers of stock market development in Africa from a macroeconomic perspective. The study examines several macroeconomic variables, including credit to the private sector, foreign direct investment, external reserves, money supply, external trade, per capita GDP, inflation, and lending rate to explain stock market development in Africa. The study builds a panel data consisting of eight African countries from 1994 to 2018 and applies the pooled mean group estimation technique. The analysis shows that in the long run, credit to the private sector, external reserves, and inflation are the most important factors that influence stock market development, while in the short run, income and trade openness are significant in explaining stock market development in Africa. The study recommends that policies to develop African stock markets should center on developing the private sector through access to credit, increased per capita income, and effective foreign reserve management to boost local and foreign investors’ confidence.


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