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The global accounting convergence and the potential adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by the U.S. is a timely topic. We contribute to the literature by examining a more recent mandatory IFRS adoption by U.S.'s largest trading partner, Canada. Canadian GAAP (CGAAP) are considered a close substitute for U.S. GAAP. One key feature of this setting is that two earnings numbers are available for fiscal year 2010 since Canadian firms were required to reconcile earnings under CGAAP with earnings under IFRS. We run a “horse race” of earnings quality between earnings under CGAAP and IFRS. We find that on average, relative to IFRS-earnings, earnings under CGAAP has greater association with next period cash flows and higher persistence. Further, when the difference between earnings under CGAAP and IFRS is large, IFRS-earnings is less value-relevant and less persistent. In short, the results strongly support the notion that higher earnings quality is associated with CGAAP. Finally, our results indicate that differences between CGAAP and IFRS with regard to accounting for financial instruments and investments significantly impair the quality of IFRS-earnings. Our findings are potentially informative to current policy debates on the possible use of IFRS by U.S. firms.
This review lays out a research perspective on earnings quality. We provide an overview of alternative definitions and measures of earnings quality and a discussion of research design choices encountered in earnings quality research. Throughout, we focus on a capital markets setting, as opposed, for example, to a contracting or stewardship setting. Our reason for this choice stems from the view that the capital market uses of accounting information are fundamental, in the sense of providing a basis for other uses, such as stewardship. Because resource allocations are ex ante decisions while contracting/stewardship assessments are ex post evaluations of outcomes, evidence on whether, how and to what degree earnings quality influences capital market resource allocation decisions is fundamental to understanding why and how accounting matters to investors and others, including those charged with stewardship responsibilities. Demonstrating a link between earnings quality and, for example, the costs of equity and debt capital implies a basic economic role in capital allocation decisions for accounting information; this role has only recently been documented in the accounting literature. We focus on how the precision of financial information in capturing one or more underlying valuation-relevant constructs affects the assessment and use of that information by capital market participants. We emphasize that the choice of constructs to be measured is typically contextual. Our main focus is on the precision of earnings, which we view as a summary indicator of the overall quality of financial reporting. Our intent in discussing research that evaluates the capital market effects of earnings quality is both to stimulate further research in this area and to encourage research on related topics, including, for example, the role of earnings quality in contracting and stewardship.
We revisit evidence whether incentives or IFRS drive earnings quality changes, analyzing a large sample of German firms in the period from 1998 to 2008. Consistent with previous studies we find that voluntary and mandatory adopters differ distinctively in terms of essential firm characteristics and that size, leverage, age, bank ownership and ownership concentration influenced the decision to voluntarily adopt IFRS. However, regardless of the decision to voluntarily adopt IFRS, we find that conditional conservatism increased under IFRS for both groups of adopters, while evidence does not suggest an increase in value relevance under IFRS. Results on earnings management in the post-adoption period are mixed. While income smoothing decreases for voluntary but not for mandatory adopters, discretionary accruals only decrease for mandatory but not for voluntary adopters. However, further analyses suggest that the capital market environment and the economic cycle during the adoption period seem to be a more powerful explanation for this evidence than voluntary or mandatory IFRS adoption. Therefore, we conclude that incentives to voluntarily adopt IFRS did not unambiguously dominate accounting standards in determining earnings quality in the case of German firms. -- IAS regulation ; IFRS ; corporate ownership structures ; insider ownership ; incentives ; earnings quality
This book provides an overview of earnings quality (EQ) in the context of financial reporting and offers suggestions for defining and measuring it. Although EQ has received increasing attention from investors, creditors, regulators, and researchers in different areas, there are various definitions of it and different approaches for its measurement. The book describes the relationship between EQ and earnings management (EM) since they can be considered related challenges, especially in the context of international financial reporting standards (IAS/IFRSs). EM occurs when managers make discretionary accounting choices that are regarded as either an efficient communication of private information to improve the informativeness of a firm’s current and future performance, or a distorting disclosure to mislead the firm’s true performance. The intentional manipulation of earnings by managers, within the limits allowed by the accounting standards, may alter the usefulness of financial reporting and lead to lower quality of earnings. The use of fair value in financial reporting has created a current debate about the impact it might have on EQ. At times, the high subjectivity in estimating fair value can allow opportunities for the exercise of management judgments and intentional bias, which can reduce the quality of financial reporting. Management discretion can result in high EM and hence in a reduction of EQ. Particularly during difficult financial periods, managers engage in EM to mask the negative effects of the turmoil, and in such circumstances accruals and earnings smoothing are attempts to reduce abnormal variations of earnings in such circumstances. This book is a valuable resource for those interested in wider perspectives on EQ and it adds to the research studies on this topic in the context of financial reporting.
Written by a team of scholars, predominantly from the Centre for Financial Studies in Frankfurt, this volume provides a descriptive survey of the present state of the German financial system and a new analytical framework to explain its workings.
This study examines the effect of mandatory IFRS adoption on earnings quality in countries which exhibit high financial secrecy. Earnings quality is proxied by signed abnormal accruals and earnings conservatism. Using 19,324 firm-years from 14 countries over the period 1998-2011, we find that firms in a high-secrecy country tend to report higher abnormal accruals and earnings conservatism, which results in lower earnings quality. On the other hand, we find that mandatory IFRS adoption improves earnings quality by decreasing abnormal accruals and earnings conservatism. Our study provides evidence of the interaction between national culture, as indicated by secrecy, and IFRS adoption and helps to explain differences in earnings quality across different jurisdictions following IFRS adoption.
Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2010 im Fachbereich BWL - Investition und Finanzierung, Note: 70/100, Durham University (Durham Business School), Veranstaltung: Research Methods, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Since 2005, the disclosure of consolidated financial statements according to IFRS has been mandatory for all listed companies in the European Union. IFRS supporters claim that a single accounting standard would increase the level of disclosure and hence, increase transparency and therefore investor protection. This paper strives to determine if IFRS increases investor protection through improvements in reporting transparency. Therefore, this paper focuses on the ability of IFRS to decrease earnings management, the main driver of investor protection. The theoretical rationale gives an overview of earnings management, revealing its popularity among management. However, irrespective of the motivation, earnings management reduces the transparency for the investor and thereby reduces investor protection. The review of empirical evidence reveals that voluntary adoption of IFRS leads to a strong decrease in earnings management and an increase in disclosure quality of financial statements. Indeed, the voluntary adoption is biased because the first-time adopters are convinced that a higher transparency could be used to their own advantage. In contrast, the mandatory adoption is not free of ambiguity, but literature tends to conclude that the forced implementation of IFRS leads neither to a reduction of earnings management nor to a higher level of disclosure. Consequently, a mandatory IFRS adoption does not necessarily increase investor protection.
This study examines the effect of the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on voluntary disclosure. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we document a significant increase in the likelihood and frequency of management earnings forecasts following mandatory IFRS adoption, consistent with the notion that IFRS adoption alters firms' disclosure incentives in response to increased capital-market demand. We find the increase to be larger among firms domiciled in code-law countries, suggesting a catching-up effect among firms facing low disclosure incentives pre-adoption. We then propose and test three channels through which IFRS adoption could alter firms' disclosure incentives: improved earnings quality, increased shareholder demand, and increased analyst demand. We find evidence consistent with all three channels.The appendix to "Mandatory Financial Reporting and Voluntary Disclosure: The Effect of Mandatory IFRS Adoption on Management Forecasts" may be found here: 'http://ssrn.com/abstract=2767001' http://ssrn.com/abstract=2767001.