Cross-Listing in Us Markets and Conservatism: Does Type of Listing Matter?

Abstract

This paper examines conditional accounting conservatism (Basu, 1997) of international firms cross-listed on United States stock exchanges. We compare the conservatism of firms that cross-list choosing a US ADR programme offering the possibility to raise equity capital (ADR Level III) to similar firms that choose to not raise capital in US markets (ADR Level II). Our results show that the firms that have the option to raise capital display a higher level of conservatism than the firms that do not have that option. The difference in conservatism is more pronounced for firms from Common Law countries than for Code Law countries. This evidence suggests that firms intending to issue equity capital in order to finance future growth possibilities will provide credible and verifiable earnings information to investors. This puts into question the suggestion of Ball et al. (2005) that the demand for conservative accounting predominantly originates from debt markets.

Keywords: International financial reporting, conservatism, cross-listings, bonding

JEL Classification: M40