Disclosure Under IFRS: Does the Legal Origin Disclosure Gap Persist for Cross-Listed Firms?

Abstract

This study investigates whether the influence of the US environment on firms cross-listed in the US is associated with the reduction in the disclosure deficiencies related to firms’ legal traditions. We analyze the levels of compliance with the disclosures required by International Accounting Standard (IAS) 24 concerning related party transactions and perform a double-differences comparison. First, we compare firms from different legal origins (common law versus civil law), and second, we compare the cross-listing status (cross-listed in the US versus domestically listed only) of a panel sample of firms from countries in which International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are mandatory. For domestically listed firms, we find that firms from the common law tradition have disclosure levels superior to those of firms from the civil law tradition. We find that the main reason for the differences in disclosure for these firms is regulatory quality. However, we do not find any differences in the level of disclosure among firms cross-listed in the US that can be associated with firms’ legal origin. Our results suggest that the regulatory enforcement and scrutiny of capital markets imposed by the US market compensate for home-country institutional deficiencies and mitigate differences in firms’ disclosure across legal origins.

Keywords: cross-listing, mandatory disclosure, legal origin, enforcement, regulatory quality

JEL Classification: M41, M48, G15, G14, F33, F21