Does IFRS convergence improve earnings informativeness? An analysis from the book-tax tradeoff perspective

K. Hung CHAN, Kenny Z. LIN, Phyllis L. L. MO, Pauline W. WONG*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Exploiting the convergence of tax-based accounting standards to the judgement-based International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as an information shock, this study examines whether the decrease in book-tax conformity improves earnings informativeness in China from the book-tax tradeoff perspective. Using A-share firms which experience this drastic regulatory change as the treatment firms and B-share firms which are not subject to such change as the benchmark firms, we find a significant decrease in the earnings informativeness for A-share firms but not B-share firms, and that the decrease is most pronounced for firms with strong financial reporting incentives. Additional analyses reveal that the decreases in earnings informativeness are due to financial reporting changes rather than changes in economic conditions. Our results shed light on the importance of considering underlying institutional factors in assessing the impact of changes in financial reporting on earnings quality.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)158-184
Number of pages27
JournalAccounting and Business Research
Volume53
Issue number2
Early online date27 Aug 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Funding

This work was supported by Lingnan University: [grant number DR15A2]; Hang Seng University of Hong Kong: [grant number URC-CRF-1516-06]; Research Grant Council of Hong Kong: [project number UGC/FDS11/B03/18]. We are grateful to the editors, associate editor (Martin Jacob), and two anonymous referees for their very constructive comments and suggestions. K. Hung Chan acknowledges partial financial support for this work by the Research Grant Council (RGC) of Hong Kong (project number UGC/FDS11/B03/18), Kenny Z. Lin acknowledges partial financial support from Lingnan University (grant number DR15A2) and Pauline W. Wong acknowledges partial financial support from Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (grant number URC-CRF-1516-06). All errors remain our own.

Keywords

  • Book-tax conformity
  • IFRS
  • book-tax tradeoff
  • earnings informativeness

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