IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tsa/wpaper/0066acc.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Could IFRS Replace US GAAP? A Comparison of Earnings Attributes and Informativeness in the US Market

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth A. Gordon

    (The University of Texas at San Antonio)

  • Bjorn N. Jorgensen

    (The University of Texas at San Antonio)

  • Cheryl L. Linthicum

    (The University of Texas at San Antonio)

Abstract

We compare various earnings attributes of two accounting standards in one regulatory environment. We consider all firms that file Form 20-F reconciliations from IFRS to USGAAP with the SEC for 2004-2006. We find USGAAP and IFRS share many earnings attributes with two notable exceptions: USGAAP exhibits higher cash persistence and value relevance. Both IFRS and USGAAP accruals are incrementally informative over cash flows. While USGAAP net income has incremental informativeness over IFRS earnings and cash flows, the reverse is not true. USGAAP exhibits higher relative information content. Our results inform US regulators considering whether to permit, or require, IFRS.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth A. Gordon & Bjorn N. Jorgensen & Cheryl L. Linthicum, 2011. "Could IFRS Replace US GAAP? A Comparison of Earnings Attributes and Informativeness in the US Market," Working Papers 0028, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    • Handle: RePEc:tsa:wpaper:0066acc
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://interim.business.utsa.edu/wps/acc/0028ACC-006-2010.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Myungsun Kim & William Kross, 2005. "The Ability of Earnings to Predict Future Operating Cash Flows Has Been Increasing—Not Decreasing," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 753-780, December.
    2. Easton, Pd & Harris, Ts, 1991. "Earnings As An Explanatory Variable For Returns," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 19-36.
    3. Hollis Ashbaugh & Morton Pincus, 2001. "Domestic Accounting Standards, International Accounting Standards, and the Predictability of Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 417-434, December.
    4. Lang, Mark & Smith Raedy, Jana & Wilson, Wendy, 2006. "Earnings management and cross listing: Are reconciled earnings comparable to US earnings?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 255-283, October.
    5. Pope, PF & Walker, M, 1999. "International differences in the timeliness, conservatism, and classification of earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37, pages 53-87.
    6. Dechow, Patricia M., 1994. "Accounting earnings and cash flows as measures of firm performance : The role of accounting accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 3-42, July.
    7. Leuz, Christian & Nanda, Dhananjay & Wysocki, Peter D., 2003. "Earnings management and investor protection: an international comparison," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 505-527, September.
    8. Ashbaugh, Hollis, 2001. "Non-US Firms' Accounting Standard Choices," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 129-153.
    9. 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.
    10. Ball, Ray & Kothari, S. P. & Robin, Ashok, 2000. "Corrigendum to "The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings"; [Journal of Accounting and Economics 29 (2000) 1-51]," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 241-241, October.
    11. Bhattacharya, Utpal & Daouk, Hazem & Jorgenson, Brian & Kehr, Carl-Heinrich, 2000. "When an event is not an event: the curious case of an emerging market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 69-101, January.
    12. Kothari, S. P. & Zimmerman, Jerold L., 1995. "Price and return models," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 155-192, September.
    13. Amir, E & Harris, Ts & Venuti, Ek, 1993. "A Comparison Of The Value-Relevance Of United-States Versus Non-United-States Gaap Accounting Measures Using Form-20-F Reconciliations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31, pages 230-264.
    14. Mark T. Bradshaw & Brian J. Bushee & Gregory S. Miller, 2004. "Accounting Choice, Home Bias, and U.S. Investment in Non‐U.S. Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(5), pages 795-841, December.
    15. Holthausen, Robert W. & Watts, Ross L., 2001. "The relevance of the value-relevance literature for financial accounting standard setting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 3-75, September.
    16. Tarun Khanna & Krishna G. Palepu & Suraj Srinivasan, 2004. "Disclosure Practices of Foreign Companies Interacting with U.S. Markets," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 475-508, May.
    17. Ball, Ray & Kothari, S. P. & Robin, Ashok, 2000. "The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-51, February.
    18. Basu, Sudipta, 1997. "The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 3-37, December.
    19. Shyam NMI Sunder & Ronald A. Dye, 2001. "Why Not Allow the FASB and IASB Standards to Compete in the U.S.?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm192, Yale School of Management.
    20. Christian Leuz, 2003. "IAS Versus U.S. GAAP: Information Asymmetry–Based Evidence from Germany's New Market," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 445-472, June.
    21. Givoly, Dan & Hayn, Carla, 2000. "The changing time-series properties of earnings, cash flows and accruals: Has financial reporting become more conservative?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 287-320, June.
    22. Harris, Mary S. & Muller III, Karl A., 1999. "The market valuation of IAS versus US-GAAP accounting measures using Form 20-F reconciliations1," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1-3), pages 285-312, January.
    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. 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.
    2. Fuad, Fuad & Juliarto, Agung & Harto, Puji, 2019. "Does IFRS convergence really increase accounting qualities?Emerging market evidence," Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Science, Universidad ESAN, vol. 24(48), pages 205-220.
    3. 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.
    4. Stuart Mestelman & Emad Mohammad & Mohamed Shehata, 2015. "The Convergence of IFRS and U.S. GAAP: Evidence from the SEC's Removal of Form 20‐F Reconciliations," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(3), pages 190-211, September.
    5. Eng, Li Li & Sun, Li & Vichitsarawong, Thanyaluk, 2013. "The valuation properties of earnings and book values reported under IAS, domestic GAAP and U.S. GAAP: Evidence from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Singapore," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 278-285.
    6. Roger Silvers, 2016. "The Valuation Impact of SEC Enforcement Actions on Nontarget Foreign Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 187-234, March.
    7. 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.
    8. Strauss, Ilan & Yang, Jangho, 2020. "Corporate Secular Stagnation: Empirical Evidence on the Advanced Economy Investment Slowdown," INET Oxford Working Papers 2019-16, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    9. Ferrer García, Cristina & Laínez Gadea, José Antonio, 2013. "Detectando diferencias en la medición de la calidad del resultado: evidencia empírica para empresas españolas || Detecting Differences on the Earnings Quality Measurement: Empirical Evidence on Spanis," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 16(1), pages 5-28, December.
    10. Rabiu Saminu Jibril, 2019. "The Impact of International Financial Reporting Stanadard (IFRS) Adoption on Accounting Quality in Nigerian Listed Money Deposit Banks," Applied Finance and Accounting, Redfame publishing, vol. 5(1), pages 49-57, February.
    11. Xiaoli Ortega, 2017. "A Review of IFRS and U.S. GAAP Convergence History and Relevant Studies," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(9), pages 31-38, September.
    12. Saleh JAWARNEH, 2021. "The Difference Between Ifrs And Us Gaap In Financial Statement Presentation," Annals of Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 309-317, December.
    13. Meena Bhatia & Mwila J. Mulenga, 2019. "Value Relevance of Accounting Information: A Review of Empirical Evidence Across Continents," Jindal Journal of Business Research, , vol. 8(2), pages 179-193, December.
    14. Troy Pollard, 2016. "Sneaking in the back door? An evaluation of reverse mergers and IPOs," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 305-341, August.
    15. 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.

    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. Isidro, Helena & Raonic, Ivana, 2012. "Firm incentives, institutional complexity and the quality of “harmonized” accounting numbers," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 407-436.
    2. 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.
    3. 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).
    4. Macías, Marta & Muiño, Flora, 2011. "Examining dual accounting systems in Europe," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 51-78, March.
    5. Karampinis, Nikolaos I. & Hevas, Dimosthenis L., 2011. "Mandating IFRS in an Unfavorable Environment: The Greek Experience," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 304-332, September.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Tsalavoutas, Ioannis & André, Paul & Evans, Lisa, 2012. "The transition to IFRS and the value relevance of financial statements in Greece," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 262-277.
    9. 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.
    10. Iatridis, George, 2010. "International Financial Reporting Standards and the quality of financial statement information," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 193-204, June.
    11. Barth, Mary E. & Landsman, Wayne & Lang, Mark, 2007. "International Accounting Standards and Accounting Quality," Research Papers 1976, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    12. Goncharov, Igor & Werner, Joerg R. & Zimmermann, Jochen, 2009. "Legislative demands and economic realities: Company and group accounts compared," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 334-362, December.
    13. Kamarudin, Khairul Anuar & Ariff, Akmalia M. & Jaafar, Aziz, 2020. "Investor protection, cross-listing and accounting quality," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    14. Juan Manuel Garcia Lara & Araceli Mora, 2004. "Balance sheet versus earnings conservatism in Europe," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 261-292.
    15. Chung, Hyeesoo H. & Wynn, Jinyoung P., 2008. "Managerial legal liability coverage and earnings conservatism," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 135-153, September.
    16. 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.
    17. Nobes, Christopher & Stadler, Christian, 2018. "Investigating international differences in financial reporting: Data problems and some proposed solutions," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 602-614.
    18. Dimitropoulos, Panagiotis E. & Asteriou, Dimitrios & Kousenidis, Dimitrios & Leventis, Stergios, 2013. "The impact of IFRS on accounting quality: Evidence from Greece," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 108-123.
    19. Hans B. Christensen & Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2021. "Mandatory CSR and sustainability reporting: economic analysis and literature review," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 1176-1248, September.
    20. Igor Goncharov & Allan Hodgson, 2008. "Comprehensive Income In Europe: Valuation, Prediction And Conservative Issues," Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, Faculty of Sciences, "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba Iulia, vol. 1(10), pages 1-1.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    IFRS; US GAAP;

    JEL classification:

    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • M48 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tsa:wpaper:0066acc. 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: Wendy Frost (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbutsus.html .

    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.