IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/gpprii/v43y2018i4d10.1057_s41288-018-0088-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Market Reaction to the Adoption of IFRS in the European Insurance Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Abed Al-Nasser Abdallah

    (American University of Sharjah)

  • Wissam Abdallah

    (Lebanese American University)

  • Feras M. Salama

    (American University of Sharjah)

Abstract

This study examines the market reaction of the European insurance industry to the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Europe. Using an event study methodology, we find that investors in the insurance industry reacted favourably to most of the events that led to the adoption of IFRS. However, the positive reaction is not consistent across all events, which may reveal some investor concern as to whether the benefits of IFRS adoption (i.e. comparability and transparency) exceed the costs (i.e. increase audit fees and/or managerial discretion). We also find that investors’ reaction to IFRS adoption differs between life and non-life insurers. Specifically, our multivariate results show that investors in the non-life insurance industry react more favourably to IFRS adoption, which indicates that they anticipate the benefits of IFRS will exceed the costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Abed Al-Nasser Abdallah & Wissam Abdallah & Feras M. Salama, 2018. "The Market Reaction to the Adoption of IFRS in the European Insurance Industry," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(4), pages 653-703, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:43:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1057_s41288-018-0088-1
    DOI: 10.1057/s41288-018-0088-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41288-018-0088-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41288-018-0088-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gus De Franco & S.P. Kothari & Rodrigo S. Verdi, 2011. "The Benefits of Financial Statement Comparability," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 895-931, September.
    2. Leverty, J. Tyler & Grace, Martin F., 2010. "The robustness of output measures in property-liability insurance efficiency studies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1510-1524, July.
    3. Petroni, Kathy Ruby, 1992. "Optimistic reporting in the property- casualty insurance industry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 485-508, December.
    4. Mary E. Barth & Wayne R. Landsman & Mark H. Lang, 2008. "International Accounting Standards and Accounting Quality," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 467-498, June.
    5. Francis, Jere R. & Martin, Xiumin, 2010. "Acquisition profitability and timely loss recognition," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1-2), pages 161-178, February.
    6. Jennifer Francis & Dhananjay Nanda & Per Olsson, 2008. "Voluntary Disclosure, Earnings Quality, and Cost of Capital," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 53-99, March.
    7. Atwood, T.J. & Drake, Michael S. & Myers, James N. & Myers, Linda A., 2011. "Do earnings reported under IFRS tell us more about future earnings and cash flows?," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 103-121, March.
    8. Holger Daske, 2006. "Economic Benefits of Adopting IFRS or US-GAAP - Have the Expected Cost of Equity Capital Really Decreased?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3-4), pages 329-373.
    9. Leuz, C & Verrecchia, RE, 2000. "The economic consequences of increased disclosure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38, pages 91-124.
    10. Christensen, Hans B. & Lee, Edward & Walker, Martin, 2007. "Cross-sectional variation in the economic consequences of international accounting harmonization: The case of mandatory IFRS adoption in the UK," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 341-379, December.
    11. Fernando, Chitru S. & Gatchev, Vladimir A. & Spindt, Paul A., 2012. "Institutional ownership, analyst following, and share prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2175-2189.
    12. Holger Daske & Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz & Rodrigo Verdi, 2008. "Mandatory IFRS Reporting around the World: Early Evidence on the Economic Consequences," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(5), pages 1085-1142, December.
    13. George Serafeim, 2011. "Consequences and Institutional Determinants of Unregulated Corporate Financial Statements: Evidence from Embedded Value Reporting," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(2), pages 529-571, May.
    14. Holthausen, Robert W. & Leftwich, Richard W., 1983. "The economic consequences of accounting choice implications of costly contracting and monitoring," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 77-117, April.
    15. Ding, Yuan & Hope, Ole-Kristian & Jeanjean, Thomas & Stolowy, Herve, 2007. "Differences between domestic accounting standards and IAS: Measurement, determinants and implications," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-38.
    16. Abed AL‐Nasser Abdallah, 2008. "Do regulations matter? The effects of cross‐listing on analysts' coverage and forecast errors," Review of Accounting and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(3), pages 285-307, August.
    17. Gerry Dickinson & Patrick M. Liedtke, 2004. "Impact of a Fair Value Financial Reporting System on Insurance Companies: A Survey," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 29(3), pages 540-581, July.
    18. Brown, Stephen J. & Warner, Jerold B., 1985. "Using daily stock returns : The case of event studies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 3-31, March.
    19. Palea, Vera, 2013. "IAS/IFRS and Financial Reporting Quality: Lessons from the European Experience," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201330, University of Turin.
    20. Dye, Ra, 1988. "Earnings Management In An Overlapping Generations Model," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 195-235.
    21. Ryan Lafond & Sugata Roychowdhury, 2008. "Managerial Ownership and Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 101-135, March.
    22. David F. Babbel & Craig Merrill, 2005. "Real and Illusory Value Creation by Insurance Companies," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-22, March.
    23. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    24. Hui, Kai Wai & Matsunaga, Steve & Morse, Dale, 2009. "The impact of conservatism on management earnings forecasts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 192-207, June.
    25. Abdallah, Abed AL-Nasser & Abdallah, Wissam & Ismail, Ahmad, 2012. "Do accounting standards matter to financial analysts? An empirical analysis of the effect of cross-listing from different accounting standards regimes on analyst following and forecast error," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 168-197.
    26. Rick Cuijpers & Willem Buijink, 2005. "Voluntary adoption of non-local GAAP in the European Union: A study of determinants and consequences," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 487-524.
    27. Mark Lang & Jana Smith Raedy & Michelle Higgins Yetman, 2003. "How Representative Are Firms That Are Cross‐Listed in the United States? An Analysis of Accounting Quality," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 363-386, May.
    28. Breusch, T S & Pagan, A R, 1979. "A Simple Test for Heteroscedasticity and Random Coefficient Variation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1287-1294, September.
    29. Petroni, K & Beasley, M, 1996. "Errors in accounting estimates and their relation to audit firm type," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 151-171.
    30. Thomas Post & Helmut Gründl & Lisa Schmidl & Mark S. Dorfman, 2007. "Implications of IFRS for the European Insurance Industry—Insights From Capital Market Theory," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 10(2), pages 247-265, September.
    31. Ball, Ray & Robin, Ashok & Wu, Joanna Shuang, 2003. "Incentives versus standards: properties of accounting income in four East Asian countries," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-3), pages 235-270, December.
    32. Brown, Stephen J. & Warner, Jerold B., 1980. "Measuring security price performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 205-258, September.
    33. Datar, Vinay T. & Y. Naik, Narayan & Radcliffe, Robert, 1998. "Liquidity and stock returns: An alternative test," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 203-219, August.
    34. Mary E. Barth & Wayne R. Landsman & Danqing Young & Zili Zhuang, 2014. "Relevance of Differences between Net Income based on IFRS and Domestic Standards for European Firms," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3-4), pages 297-327, April.
    35. Dennis Fan & Raymond So & Jason Yeh, 2006. "Analyst Earnings Forecasts for Publicly Traded Insurance Companies," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 105-136, March.
    36. Vicentiu M. Covrig & Mark L. Defond & Mingyi Hung, 2007. "Home Bias, Foreign Mutual Fund Holdings, and the Voluntary Adoption of International Accounting Standards," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 41-70, March.
    37. Yen†Jung Lee & Kathy R. Petroni & Min Shen, 2006. "Cherry Picking, Disclosure Quality, and Comprehensive Income Reporting Choices: The Case of Property†Liability Insurers," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(3), pages 655-692, September.
    38. Sefcik, Se & Thompson, R, 1986. "An Approach To Statistical-Inference In Cross-Sectional Models With Security Abnormal Returns As Dependent Variable," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 316-334.
    39. Michael Neel, 2017. "Accounting Comparability and Economic Outcomes of Mandatory IFRS Adoption," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(1), pages 658-690, March.
    40. Donald P. Morgan, 2002. "Rating Banks: Risk and Uncertainty in an Opaque Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 874-888, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cristina PAȘINSCHI & Elena HLACIUC & Svetlana MIHAILA, 2021. "Exhaustive Impact Of Ifrs 17 In The Context Of The Accounting Of Insurance Contracts," European Journal of Accounting, Finance & Business, "Stefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Romania - Faculty of Economics and Public Administration, West University of Timisoara, Romania - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 17(27), pages 95-103, October.
    2. Hafis Ahmed oglu Hajiyev & Marina Stolyarova & Olga Kalacheva & Victoria Malitskaya & Yana Ivanova & Lyudmila Malysheva, 2021. "International Financial Reporting Standards' (IFRS) application peculiarities: a case study," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 9(2), pages 255-267, December.
    3. Guy Assaker & Wassim Shahin, 2022. "What Drives Faculty Publication Citations in the Business Field? Empirical Results from an AACSB Middle Eastern Institution," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-29, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Palea, Vera, 2013. "IAS/IFRS and Financial Reporting Quality: Lessons from the European Experience," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201330, University of Turin.
    2. De George, Emmanuel T. & Li, Xi & Shivakumar, Lakshmanan, 2016. "A review of the IFRS adoption literature," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67599, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Ulf Br&?ggemann & J?rg-Markus Hitz & Thorsten Sellhorn, 2013. "Intended and Unintended Consequences of Mandatory IFRS Adoption: A Review of Extant Evidence and Suggestions for Future Research," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 1-37, May.
    4. Emmanuel T. De George & Xi Li & Lakshmanan Shivakumar, 2016. "A review of the IFRS adoption literature," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 898-1004, September.
    5. Jeong-Bon Kim & Haina Shi & Jing Zhou, 2014. "International Financial Reporting Standards, institutional infrastructures, and implied cost of equity capital around the world," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 469-507, April.
    6. Irene Karamanou & George P. Nishiotis, 2009. "Disclosure and the Cost of Capital: Evidence from the Market's Reaction to Firm Voluntary Adoption of IAS," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(7‐8), pages 793-821, September.
    7. Macías, Marta & Muiño, Flora, 2011. "Examining dual accounting systems in Europe," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 51-78, March.
    8. Md Humayun Kabir & Fawzi Laswad & Md Ainul Islam, 2010. "Impact of IFRS in New Zealand on Accounts and Earnings Quality," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 20(4), pages 343-357, December.
    9. Tereza Miková, 2014. "Influence of IFRS on Earnings Manipulation: Evidence from the European Union," Acta Oeconomica Pragensia, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(6), pages 3-18.
    10. Irene Karamanou & George P. Nishiotis, 2009. "Disclosure and the Cost of Capital: Evidence from the Market's Reaction to Firm Voluntary Adoption of IAS," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(7‐8), pages 793-821, September.
    11. Christian Leuz & Peter D. Wysocki, 2016. "The Economics of Disclosure and Financial Reporting Regulation: Evidence and Suggestions for Future Research," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 525-622, May.
    12. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    13. Günther, Nina & Gegenfurtner, Bernhard & Kaserer, Christoph & Achleitner, Ann-Kristin, 2009. "International financial reporting standards and earnings Quality: the myth of voluntary vs. mandatory adoption," CEFS Working Paper Series 2009-09, Technische Universität München (TUM), Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies (CEFS).
    14. Holger Daske & Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz & Rodrigo Verdi, 2013. "Adopting a Label: Heterogeneity in the Economic Consequences Around IAS/IFRS Adoptions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 495-547, June.
    15. Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin, 2017. "Malaysian Private Entities Reporting Standards - Benefits and Challenges to SMEs," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 7(11), pages 1302-1320, November.
    16. Palea, Vera & Scagnelli, Simone Domenico, 2014. "Do Earnings Reported under IFRS Improve the Prediction of Future Cash Flows? Evidence From European Banks," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201443, University of Turin.
    17. Christian Gross, 2016. "The Effect of the German Accounting Law Modernization Act on the Comparability of Private Local GAAP and IFRS Firms," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 17(3), pages 423-460, December.
    18. Oxelheim, Lars, 2019. "Optimal vs satisfactory transparency: The impact of global macroeconomic fluctuations on corporate competitiveness," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 190-206.
    19. Paul André & Peter Walton & Dan Yang, 2012. "Voluntary adoption of IFRS: A study of determinants for UK unlisted firms," Post-Print hal-00935013, HAL.
    20. Hans B. Christensen & Edward Lee & Martin Walker & Cheng Zeng, 2015. "Incentives or Standards: What Determines Accounting Quality Changes around IFRS Adoption?," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 31-61, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:43:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1057_s41288-018-0088-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.