Does Mandatory IFRS Adoption Improve Information Comparability?

2012 ◽  
Vol 87 (5) ◽  
pp. 1767-1789 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita W. Y. Yip ◽  
Danqing Young

ABSTRACT This study examines whether the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the European Union significantly improves information comparability in 17 European countries. We employ three proxies—the similarity of accounting functions that translate economic events into accounting data, the degree of information transfer, and the similarity of the information content of earnings and of the book value of equity—to measure information comparability. Our results suggest that mandatory IFRS adoption improves cross-country information comparability by making similar things look more alike without making different things look less different. Our results also suggest that both accounting convergence and higher quality information under IFRS are the likely drivers of the comparability improvement. In addition, we find some evidence that cross-country comparability improvement is affected by firms' institutional environment. Data Availability: Data are available from commercial providers (Worldscope, DataStream, and I/B/E/S).

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-59
Author(s):  
Jimmy F. Downes ◽  
Tony Kang ◽  
Sohyung Kim ◽  
Cheol Lee

SYNOPSIS We investigate the effect of mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption in the European Union on the association between accounting estimates and future cash flows, a key concept of accounting quality within the International Accounting Standard Board conceptual framework. We find that the predictive value of accounting estimates improves after IFRS adoption. This improvement is largely driven by specific types of accounting estimates, such as accounts receivable, depreciation, and amortization expense. We also find that the improvement is concentrated in countries with larger differences between pre-IFRS domestic GAAP and IFRS. Our findings suggest that IFRS allow managers to exercise their judgment to provide information about future cash flows through the more subjective/judgmental portion of accounting accruals. JEL Classifications: M16; M49; O52. Data Availability: The data used in this study are from public sources identified in the study.


Author(s):  
Melik Ertuğrul

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)-based financial reporting has become widespread all around the world especially after its mandatory adoption in the European Union in 2005. There are several objectives of IFRS-based financial reporting, all of which depends on the idea of a single set of high-quality standards as frequently highlighted by promoters of IFRS. This literature review depicts a comprehensive picture of the archival research on the impact of IFRS-based reporting on capital markets from the perspective of the value relevance (VR) concept. First, the VR concept, as well as models employed to measure the VR, are described. Afterwards, selected studies of the archival research are grouped, summarized, and discussed. Finally, archival research is methodologically analyzed by considering different dimensions. All in all, this literature review provides information on IFRS adoption from the perspective of the VR.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Sayumwe ◽  
Claude Francoeur

 Since 1 January 2005, the European Union (EU) has mandated implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for preparation of consolidated financial statements for EU-listed firms. This paper analyzes the economic impact of mandatory adoption of IFRS on firms, investors, and creditors. Relying on the positive accounting theory, we study the economic impact of the new conceptual framework of financial information from IASB (2010), especially in paragraph OB2, where investors and creditors are designated as the main users of financial information, and QC 38, which assesses whether the benefits of financial information justify the costs associated with its production and use. Our sample is composed of 2,926 European firms that adopted IFRS in 2005. Results show that firm’s cost of capital declines when comparing data before and after IFRS adoption. For creditors, our results suggest that credit rating improves after IFRS adoption. However, we do not notice any significant difference in the quality of accounting earnings for investors.We also test if these results hold in the presence of asymmetric information, financial dependence and family ownership structure. Our results confirm the above trend. We conclude that the market anticipates the content of accounting data, and that mandatory adoption of IFRS has no impact on investors. 


Author(s):  
Chris D. Gingrich ◽  
Leah Kratz ◽  
Ryan Faraci

This study explores the impact of mandatory adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in developing countries on business leaders’ perceptions of the overall accounting and financial environment. The study employs survey data from the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report to gauge business leaders’ perceptions of the accounting and financial environment. Eight countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia comprise case studies, all of whom recently adopted mandatory IFRS use for publicly listed companies. Each survey variable is tracked over time, comparing pre and post IFRS adoption, vis-à-vis the same variable in a control country that did not adopt IFRS. IFRS adoption shows mostly positive impacts on the accounting environment in four cases. The impact of adoption in the other three countries is mostly insignificant. These results should encourage policymakers in developing countries to improve auditing and enforcement practices to increase the likelihood of positive results from IFRS adoption.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aminu Abdullahi ◽  
Musa Yelwa Abubakar ◽  
Sunusi Sa’ Ad Ahmad

This study investigates the effect of IFRS adoption on the performance of oil and gas marketing companies in Nigeria. The study utilise financial statements of a sample of eight (8) oil and gas companies operating in the country. These companies were purposively selected due to availability of data. Firms’ performance was proxied by Profit Margin (PM), Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) ratios and were considered as dependent variables to be determined by reporting regime (RR) as independent variable. While Current Ratio (CR), quick Test (QT), Total Debt Ratio (TDR) Earnings per Share (EPS) and Equity Debt Ratio (EDR) are use as control variables. The ratios were computed and compared for 4 years (2010 to 2011) before mandatory IFRS adoption and 2012 to 2013 often mandatory adoption OLS, regression with help of eviews 9 was employed for the analysis. The study reveals IFRS adoption has not improved the performance of oil and gas companies in Nigeria. The paper recommended that, oil and gas companies should continue to comply with provisions of IFRS as it will improve their reporting quality which may also improve their performance as result of more investment flow, easy access to capital and comparability.


2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Procházka

Abstract The paper reviews recent literature on the specifics of adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by the new EU members from the Central and Eastern Europe. Despite being members of the EU or OECD, the transition to a standard developed economy has not yet finished. The first part of the paper presents macroeconomic statistics and capital market data, which underline a unique economic structure of the region (relative unimportance of capital markets for raising capital, strong dependence on foreign direct investments) combined with the lacks in institutional environment. Under such conditions, the economic consequences of IFRS adoption can be unpredictable and adverse. The second part of the paper analyses the reflection of specifics of the IFRS adoption in the CEE region in research studies covered by the Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science database. The analysis reveals (a) cross-country disproportion in the research coverage of the area; (b) relatively low coverage of the IFRS research focusing on these transition countries in top journals.


2012 ◽  
Vol 87 (6) ◽  
pp. 2061-2094 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeong-Bon Kim ◽  
Xiaohong Liu ◽  
Liu Zheng

ABSTRACT: This study examines the impact of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on audit fees. We first build an analytical audit fee model to analyze the impact on audit fees for the change in both audit complexity and financial reporting quality brought about by IFRS adoption. We then test the model's predictions using audit fee data from European Union countries that mandated IFRS adoption in 2005. We find that mandatory IFRS adoption has led to an increase in audit fees. We also find that the IFRS-related audit fee premium increases with the increase in audit complexity brought about by IFRS adoption, and decreases with the improvement in financial reporting quality arising from IFRS adoption. Finally, we find some evidence that the IFRS-related audit fee premium is lower in countries with stronger legal regimes. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks. Data availability: Data are available from public sources identified in the paper.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria T. Caban-Garcia ◽  
Haihong He

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact on the comparability of earnings of two important events that occurred in 2005 in the Scandinavian region: the European Union-mandated adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the mergers between the three national exchanges of Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. Our tests follow two approaches. The first approach relies on mean-centered earnings/price multiples following Land and Lang (2002) to determine if the multiples converge in the 2005–2008 period. Our results show that all countries except Finland experienced a lower mean-centered earnings/price ratio in the 2005–2008 period. Additionally, in the 2005–2008 period, the mean-centered earnings/price ratio in Norway deviates from the region's mean more than it deviates from the mean in Finland, Denmark, and Sweden, even after controlling for other firm and country factors. Our second approach uses a firm-year comparability measure (De Franco et al. 2011) calculated during the 2001–2004 and 2005–2008 periods to assess whether comparability increases during the 2005–2008 period. Since the two events in our study are contemporaneous, we use Norway as a benchmark to separate the effect of IFRS from that of harmonized regulation after the merger. The results generally show that comparability is significantly higher during the 2005–2008 period in all countries. Our multivariate tests also confirm that comparability increases (although marginally) for all OMX Nordic Exchange countries, relative to Norway, from the 2001–2004 to the 2005–2008 period. Data Availability: Data are available from public sources indicated in the paper.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Zeghal ◽  
Sonda M. Chtourou ◽  
Yosra M. Fourati

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the question whether the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is associated with higher accounting quality. More specifically, we investigate whether the application of IFRS in 15 European Union (EU) countries is associated with less earnings management and higher timeliness, conditional conservatism, and value relevance of accounting numbers. Our results suggest that there has been some improvement in accounting quality between the pre- and post-IFRS adoption periods. In particular, we find that firms exhibit an increase in the accounting-based attributes, but a decrease in the market-based after the adoption of IFRS in 2005. Interestingly, the findings are more pronounced for the firms in countries where the distance between the pre-existing national GAAP and IFRS is important. Furthermore, we are unable to identify any change within firms that have converged their local GAAP toward IFRS before the mandatory transition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-250
Author(s):  
Jee Hoon Yuk ◽  
Wook Bin Leem

This study investigates whether earnings quality of Korean listed firms was substantially improved after the IFRS adoption in long-term aspect and which firms listed in KOSPI or KOSDAQ market had been more enjoyed the benefit. Prior studies related to this subject don’t provide consistent results and have a limitation of insufficiency of research periods. Therefore, this study analyzes the positive effect of the IFRS adoption in Korea using long-term based approach and comparative analysis on each Korean stock market. Furthermore, this study considered Korean specific institutional environment in which main financial statements prepared and disclosed by listed firms were changed from individual financial statements to consolidated financial statements after the IFRS adoption. Results of the study found that earnings quality of Korean listed firms had been significantly improved during 5 years after the IFRS adoption. In addition, earnings quality on consolidated financial statements of KOSDAQ listed firms has improved more than that of KOSPI listed firms. The results provide meaningful implications to evaluate the effects of IFRS adoption on earnings quality and to assess accomplishment of fundamental purpose of the IFRS adoption in Korea.


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