This paper investigates the effects of the IFRS adoption in the value-relevance of accounting reports, making stress upon the impact on intangible intensive firms. I operationalized value-relevance through a share price regression based on Ohlson's (1995) model and used a sample of 304 firms from Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru for the period 2006-2013. I report two main findings. First, accounting reports have lost value-relevance after the IFRS adoption in the four countries researched. And second; after the IFRS adoption, the value-relevance for intangible intensive firms' accounting information decreased in Brazil (which did not fully adopted IAS 38) but increased in Mexico. Although the period researched coincides with the global financial crisis (2009), I included research design features to mitigate this effect.
Masterarbeit aus dem Jahr 2007 im Fachbereich BWL - Bank, Börse, Versicherung, , Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Listed Dutch firms are required by law to prepare their financial statements in accordance with the International financial Statements (IFRS) since 2005. Before 2005, listed Dutch firms prepared their financial statements using Dutch law, Title 9 of book two of the Dutch Civil Code. It is interesting to investigate the effect of the implementation of IFRS. Is the quality of the financial statements improved by the implementation of IFRS for the users of the financial statements, such as investors, suppliers and banks? This question can be answered in many ways, looking at different characteristics of the accounting information, for example the comparability, the relevance, the reliability and the understandability. In this thesis the relevance will be studied. Information has the quality of relevance when it influences the economic decisions of users by helping them evaluate past, present or future events or conforming, or correcting, their past evaluations. (IFRS Handbook, 2007, p. 40) In order to be relevant the accounting information must reflect the information needs of the users in valuing a company. In order to determine the market price of a company, investors need accounting information that reflects the share price of a company. The research done studying the relevance of accounting information for valuating companies is called value-relevance research. The implementation of IFRS had consequences for the value-relevance of the accounting information. Whether the value-relevance had improved by the adoption of IFRS is dependent on the differences between the former accounting system and IFRS. The impact on value relevance in the Netherlands has not been studied yet. The impact on value-relevance in other countries has been studied however, for example in the United Kingdom (Harris and Muller, 1999), Germany (Hung and Subramanyam, 2007) and Spain Callao et al. (2007). These studies can give a powerful insight in how the difference in value-relevance of two accounting systems can be studied.
This study might interest academics, researchers, accounting regulators, practitioners and investors. Its main objective is to provide empirical evidence on how IFRS has affected earnings, intangible assets, financial reporting approach and the value relevance of intangible assets. This study hypothesises that the IFRS adoption would; increase earnings and intangible assets; have further shifted financial reporting approach towards a valuation approach; increase earnings volatility (reduce earnings persistence) and consequently increase the value relevance of intangible assets. The main methods of investigation are regression analysis. In accounting, reporting intangible assets remain controversial and challenging. IFRS to some degree would benefit U.K. investors if it increases reporting of intangible assets, particularly of different classes of intangible assets. However, existing research offers very little empirical evidence as most value relevance studies focus on earnings and book value of equity. This study reveals several key findings. First, earnings are significantly greater under IFRS but not at all different profit levels, which suggests that IFRS brings offsetting effects on earnings. However, IFRS produces mixed effects on earnings volatility and earnings persistence. Earnings are slightly more volatile but no significant impact on earnings persistence. Second, intangible assets are higher under IFRS and reporting of different classes of intangible assets is increasing. Third, this study documents broadly classified intangible assets are not value relevant which signifies the importance of specific classifications of intangible assets. Fourth, IFRS has minimal impact on the value relevance of intangible assets but intangible assets have significantly greater predictive value under IFRS. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing new findings on the impact of IFRS on accounting information in general and on intangible assets in specific. This study differs from prior study by several aspects. First, financial companies were not excluded but were separately analysed. Second, it further investigates the impact of IFRS on the two primary qualities for relevant information (informative and predictive values). Third, this study contributes to the literature by providing new empirical evidence on the value relevance of intangible assets and different classes of intangible assets. In the future, researchers can investigate the impact of adopting IFRS on the reliability of accounting information as reliability is the other specific quality for producing decision-useful information.
The broad objective of this research was to empirically examine the effect of IFRS on value relevance of accounting information. This study employs a longitudinal panel research design. The population of this study covers all quoted banks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. As at the study period, there were only 15 quoted banks on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and this also forms the sample for the study. Secondary data was been used for this study. The data was retrieved from corporate annual reports of the sampled banks for 2010-2017 financial years. The researcher utilizes only corporate annual reports because they are readily available, accessible and also provides a greater potential for comparability of results. More so, they are produced annually and kept in public sphere. The Ordinary least square regression (OLS) was used for the data analysis. The study findings revealed that while IFRS adoption has a statistically significant influence on Earnings per share and Dividend per share value relevance; it has no statistically significant influence on Book value per share value relevance. The study recommends that investors and indeed users of accounting information should still be confident in relying on accounting information prepared by corporate entities in making investment decisions. The study recommends that there is need for companies to comply fully with all IFRS standards in the preparation of financial reports since IFRS adoption was found to have positive effects on value relevance.
We investigate whether the adoption of IFRS increases the value relevance of accounting information for firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Using a longitudinal study that covers pre-IFRS and post-IFRS periods during 1990-2008, we find that the combined relevance of book value of equity and earnings alters little with IFRS adoption. However, earnings become more value relevant whereas the book value of equity does not. This impact is concentrated in the sub-samples of large firms and firms that reported accounting information differences upon IFRS adoption. Consistent with an increase in the value relevance of earnings, earnings also become more persistent around IFRS adoption. Our study suggests that even for a country categorised by strong investor protection and high quality financial reporting and enforcement, IFRS adoption affects the associations between accounting information and market value.
This paper examines the effects of the IFRS adoption on earnings quality of 1245 Canadian firms. I analyze the effects IFRS adoption on earnings persistence, earnings predictability, persistence of earnings components, cash flow predictability, accruals quality, value relevance, earnings smoothness, conservatism, and timeliness. I find that earnings quality of Canadian firms, on average, improves following the adoption and the improvements are mostly driven not by U.S. adopters but by IFRS adopters, suggesting that IFRS has a positive impact on earnings quality. Partitioning the sample, I find that firms with incentives for transparent reporting have stable earnings quality throughout the sample period whereas firms without such incentives show an improvement in earnings quality following the adoption. I also find that earnings quality declines to a greater degree for firms in extractive/high-litigation-risk industries relative to firms in non-extractive/low-litigation-risk industries. Further analyses reveal that (1) earnings quality seems to deteriorate for firms with intense reliance on fair value accounting after the adoption but not for firms with minimal reliance on fair value accounting, that (2) R&D intensive firms see some weak improvements in earnings quality following the adoption in comparison to non-R&D intensive firms, and that (3) IFRS adoption is associated with a greater improvement in earnings quality for loss firms than for profitable firms. Finally, the effects of IFRS seem unlikely to be uniform across different measures of earnings quality. Taken all together, the findings suggest that standard setters and researchers should probably not consider the effects of IFRS in isolation of firms' reporting incentives and that the SEC, that the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) concerns about the lack of implementation guidance in extractive and high-litigation-risk industries are warranted, and that fair value accounting is likely to be harmful to earnings quality.
This paper investigates whether accounting information of firms that voluntarily adopted IFRS provides incremental information to the capital market, using a sample of Japanese listed firms that disclosed reconciling items from Japanese Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (J-GAAP) to International Financial Reports Standards (IFRS) when they transfer from J-GAAP to IFRS for the first time. In details, applying level models, I tested the incremental content of reconciliation from J-GAAP to IFRS for investors interested in J-GAAP- and IFRS-based accounting numbers, respectively. The results show that the reconciliation items do have incremental information for IFRS-based other than J-GAAP-based accounting information users.
This study examines the impact of adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the prior and superseded International Accounting Standards (IAS) on investor returns, the level of earnings management and the value relevance of accounting information in African capital markets. This study is motivated by the growing momentum of African countries adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for listed, cross listed or even unlisted companies. Prior to the adoption of IFRS, a high level of diversity existed in accounting standards between African countries. These differences consisted of the number of promulgated standards, conservatism of these standards, their completeness for potential accounting transactions, depth and guidelines on allowable measurement methods and disclosure requirements. First, this study empirically examines whether IFRS adoption has impacted investor returns through the informativeness of reported earnings and secondly, whether the level of discretionary earnings management as determined by several models and proxies has declined from the IFRS adoption. Thirdly, this study examines the changes in value relevance of accounting information from the migration to IFRS. This study finds significantly higher informativeness of reported earnings under IFRS for investor returns compared to earnings per share (EPS) reporting under local GAAP after controlling for confounding factors. This provides evidence for the valuation impact of IFRS adoption. Furthermore, this study finds evidence of significantly lower earnings management by firms using IFRS compared to firms utilizing local GAAP's. This lower earnings management by IFRS reporting firms is observed for both the use of discretionary accruals to manage earnings upwards and earnings smoothing. On the value relevance of financial statements, this study first, finds that accounting reports are value relevant in all African markets examined. In addition, IFRS adopted countries and those harmonizing closely with IFRS are found to have the highest value relevance. Furthermore, test of difference in value relevance in South Africa between IFRS and South African GAAP reporting firms shows significantly higher value relevance for IFRS accounting information. -- Abstract.
