Practical Expedients—A Valid Tool in IFRS Standard‐setting?

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has introduced simplified accounting choices, so‐called ‘practical expedients’, in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). These practical expedients permit preparers to deviate from IFRS principles when accounting for economic events. We document the occurrence of such accounting simplifications in the IFRS accounting standards, as well as the extent of application and disclosure of practical expedients by large listed European firms between 2018 and 2022. Our findings indicate that firms applied and disclosed practical expedients in a relatively consistent manner over time, although substantial variation exists across and within countries and industries. We find limited systematic evidence of information loss resulting from the use of practical expedients. However, firms that explicitly disclose the non‐application of expedients tend to exhibit lower value relevance of reported net income. Our interview evidence indicates that practical expedients facilitate the IFRS standard‐setting process in that preparers can be offered simplifications that reduce their costs. However, there are also tensions concerning whether user benefits are reduced (impaired comparability, lower understandability, increased reliance on materiality considerations). There may also be concerns that, although practical expedients may so far have had favourable cost–benefit trade‐offs, a more widespread application of practical‐expedient rules might challenge the primacy of principles‐based standard‐setting.