International Financial Reporting Standards: what are the benefits?
- 4 July 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Accounting and Business Research
- Vol. 41 (3), 269-285
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00014788.2011.569054
Abstract
When countries have announced plans to adopt IFRS in lieu of the standards that had applied previously, they have referred to a number of benefits, mostly to do with equity markets. So it is not surprising that academics have looked to equity markets to assess the extent to which benefits may have materialised. The evidence they have gathered can fairly be characterised as mixed, partly because of differences in samples and the use of a wide range of proxies for the same underlying but unobservable idea. Nonetheless, it seems relatively clear that the shift to IFRS has had many consequences both for the valuation of equities and for equity markets more generally. Although there will always be winners and losers from changes in accounting standards, if only because of their distributive effects, undoubtedly some consequences are regarded by companies and investors as, on balance, beneficial. However, the story is far from complete. Ample scope remains to expand the range of possible benefits that are investigated and to improve, substantially, the methods used to seek them out.Keywords
This publication has 32 references indexed in Scilit:
- Do earnings reported under IFRS tell us more about future earnings and cash flows?Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 2011
- Corporate governance, accounting and finance: A reviewAccounting & Finance, 2010
- Market Reaction to the Adoption of IFRS in EuropeThe Accounting Review, 2010
- An investigation of compliance with international accounting standards by listed companies in the Gulf Co-Operation Council member statesThe International Journal of Accounting, 2008
- International Accounting Standards and Accounting QualityJournal of Accounting Research, 2008
- Achieving High Quality, Comparable Financial Reporting: A Review of Independent Enforcement Bodies in Australia and the United KingdomAbacus, 2007
- Incentives versus standards: properties of accounting income in four East Asian countriesJournal of Accounting and Economics, 2003
- Domestic Accounting Standards, International Accounting Standards, and the Predictability of EarningsJournal of Accounting Research, 2001
- Global Harmonisation of Accounting Standards: What Research into Capital Markets Tells UsAustralian Accounting Review, 1998
- The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings1Journal of Accounting and Economics, 1997