We examine the determinants of voluntary adoption of IFRS by medium-to-large UK unlisted firms (8417 firms comprising 287 IFRS firms and 8130 non-IFRS firms in 2009). Analysing voluntary adoption allows us to better understand the cost/benefits of choosing a specific set of accounting standards. Using univariate and multivariate analyses, we find that internationality, leverage, firm size and a...

Several studies have suggested that the adoption of IFRS can enhance the quality of financial reports, in turn improving their reliability and usefulness (Wyatt, 2005; Barth et al., 2008). However, such studies generally assume that the introduction of IFRS guarantees consistency and compliance in practice. Given that goodwill impairment testing under IFRS presents a technically challenging tas...

Theory predicts that the accounting information transparency affects credit spreads. Given that one of the putative benefits of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is transparency of accounting information, this study evaluates the impact of IFRS on the pricing of credit spreads in the over-the-counter Credit Default Swap (CDS) market. Using a difference in differences methodolog...

This study reviews new pension accounting with K-IFRS and provides empirical changes in liability for retirement allowances with adoption of K-IFRS. It will help to understand the effect of pension accounting on individual firm's financial report and the importance of public announcement of actuarial assumptions. Firms that adopted K-IFRS had various changes in retirement liability compared to ...

Motivated by the debate about the economic consequences of mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), this study investigates the effect of hedge accounting under IFRS on corporate risk management. Using a sample of large UK non-financial firms from 2003 to 2008, we show that the implementation of the new standards reduces the level of asymmetric information faced...

In recent years, a large number of countries have made reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandatory. The capital-market effects of this change have been extensively studied, but their sources are not yet well understood and still heavily debated. This paper presents new evidence that aims to distinguish between several potential explanations for these capital-mar...

Infrared-Faint Radio Sources (IFRS) are objects which are strong at radio wavelengths but undetected in sensitive Spitzer observations at infrared wavelengths. Their nature is uncertain and most have not yet been associated with any known astrophysical object. One possibility is that they are radio pulsars. To test this hypothesis we undertook observations of 16 of these sources with the Parkes...

Proponents of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) claim that mandating a uniform set of accounting standards improves financial statement comparability that in turn attracts greater cross-border investment. Our study tests this assertion by examining the change in foreign mutual fund investment in IFRS users following the mandatory adoption of IFRS in the European Union (EU) in 2...

A ngus Thomson of the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) states that: ‘Australia definitely adopts IFRSs’ (Thomson 2009, p. 153). This was in response to Nobes (2008, p. 283) who wrote that: ‘Australia has chosen not to “adopt” IFRS, but to converge its standards with IFRS’. The distinction has major legal and political aspects. It can affect preparers, auditors and users. This paper ...

We test whether mandatory IFRS adoption affects firm-level ‘crash risk,’ defined as the frequency of extreme negative stock returns. We separately analyze non-financial firms and financial firms because IFRS is likely to affect their crash risk differently. We find that crash risk decreases among non-financial firms after IFRS adoption, especially among firms in poor information environments an...