IFRS and Accounting Quality: The Impact of Enforcement

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of enforcement (greater monitoring of auditors and more regulatory scrutiny of financial reporting) on accounting quality under IFRS using measures of earnings smoothing, managing towards earnings targets, timely loss recognition and value relevance. Our sample consists of 495 UK listed firms in 2000-2009 under UK GAAP and IFRS (2,356 and 1,823 firm-years respectively), including 246 cross-listed firms (predominantly listed in Germany and the US). We find value relevance improves under IFRS for all firms and that firms are less likely to manage towards earnings targets. However measures based on earnings smoothing and timely loss recognition improve only for cross listed firms, pointing to a favourable impact of changes in the regulatory scrutiny of cross listed firms in the IFRS period.

Keywords: IFRS, accounting quality, public enforcement, auditor oversight, security market regulators

JEL Classification: M40, M41