Advances in International Accounting

Over the past quarter century China has moved from a state-controlled economy to one that relies increasingly on market-based financing. The development of accounting principles and regulation has escalated since the trading of shares began in 1990 (Lin & Feng, 2001). Some descriptive studies portray the extent to which published financial statements comply with readily observable disclosure requirements (Xiao, 1999). However, there is little evidence about how disclosure judgments are made. Some observers indicate that experimental evidence may be most appropriate in determining how accounting standards are applied, particularly in different cultures and with different incentives (Nelson, 2003, Pownall & Schipper, 1999). The current study gathers judgments from over 200 experienced accountants facing mixed incentives for reporting required related party disclosures. The incentives are derived from conditions distilled from China’s environment to develop two realistic cases. To set expectations about disclosure judgment, theoretical arguments are provided about China’s setting relative to settings in countries that have considerable history with market-based financing. Internal accountants (chief accounting officers – CAOs) and external auditors (CPAs) provide their judgments about the same cases to study how the incentives within their roles affect their judgments. One case portrays a CAO and one a CPA to allow for detection of how the participating practitioners perceive the different roles affecting expected disclosure behavior. Irrespective of respondent status, results show that conflict-laden incentives are likely to result in less than full disclosure of required related party information. Practicing auditors report that the CPA auditor portrayed in the cases will more likely insist on disclosure than the CAO portrayed in the cases. This finding is driven by the participating CPAs reporting a higher probability that the CPA portrayed in the cases would insist on disclosure to a greater extent than the CAO portrayed in the cases. This finding suggests that auditors are likely to improve the quality of financial reporting in China.

Joseph J. Schultz

Yunwei Tang

EXPERIMENTAL JUDGMENTS ABOUT RELATED-PARTY DISCLOSURES IN CHINA

中国关联方披露的实验判断

Convergence with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is receiving great attention. In 2005, all listed companies domiciled in the European Union (EU) will be required to prepare consolidated accounts based on IFRS. Individual EU member states are, however, permitted to decide whether IFRS will be required or allowed for non-listed companies or for listed companies’ individual accounts. Based primarily on data collected by the six largest international accounting firms during their most recent convergence survey, this paper examines each of the 15 EU member states’ convergence plans and their perceived barriers to convergence. The findings indicate that most EU members do not plan to converge national GAAP with IFRS, thereby highlighting the great significance of the large firms’ concerns regarding emergence of a “two-standard” system in the EU. The survey indicates the majority of EU countries will continue to require or allow national GAAP for individual accounts. While Belgium is considering requiring IFRS for all consolidated accounts, other EU countries have decided to allow or are considering allowing non-listed companies to prepare IFRS consolidated accounts. In most EU countries, the link between financial accounting and tax accounting represents a major barrier to convergence. Other frequently cited barriers include disagreement with certain IFRS and the complicated nature of certain IFRS. International requirements for financial instruments are viewed as particularly problematic.

Donna L. Street

Robert K. Larson

LARGE ACCOUNTING FIRMS’ SURVEY REVEALS EMERGENCE OF “TWO STANDARD” SYSTEM IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

大型会计师事务所调查揭示欧盟出现“双标”体系

Taiwanese firms generally have a higher proportion of non-operating income than U.S. and U.K. firms. Taiwan also has many investors who focus only on short-term returns and ignore risks. It therefore is possible that non-operating income is at least as value relevant as operating income in the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Results show that valuation models based on earnings components have a higher explanatory power than those based solely on earnings. The contribution of non-operating income is not significantly different from that of operating income.

Ben-Hsien Bao

Da-Hsien Bao

VALUE RELEVANCE OF OPERATING INCOME VERSUS NON-OPERATING INCOME IN THE TAIWAN STOCK EXCHANGE

台湾证券交易所中营业外收入与营业外收入的估值相关性

In China, there are strict regulations on Initial Public Offering (IPO) pricing. The IPO price is the product of earning per share (EPS) and a P/E ratio predetermined by the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). During the period of this study (1992–1998), the regulations on IPO pricing had been changed twice, from using the forecasted EPS to past three-year average EPS, and then changed back to the forecasted EPS. It is interesting to investigate the relationships among these changes, earnings management and earnings forecast disclosure. My findings show that using past three-year average EPS to set the IPO price may be an additional incentive for earnings management, but the evidence is not very strong. The research also investigates whether the forecasted EPS disclosed in the prospectus or public announcement can be realized under different regulations.

Heidi F.W. Lau

REGULATIONS ON IPO PRICING, EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND EARNINGS FORECASTS DURING THE REFORM OF STATE ENTERPRISES IN CHINA

中国国有企业改革期间IPO定价、盈余管理和盈余预测的监管

Many non-U.S. national stock exchanges have amended their listing standards to require audit committees during the last two decades, while U.S. national stock exchanges have recently amended their listing standards in response to recommendations made by the Blue Ribbon Committee on Improving the Effectiveness of Corporate Audit Committees (BRC). These new listing requirements for U.S. registrants (SEC Form 10-K filers) provide an opportunity to contrast and examine requirements for audit committee structure and membership of non-U.S. registrants (SEC Form 20-F filers). Recognizing that the International Accounting Standards Board has identified a “core” set of basic accounting standards in international filings accentuates the need to have uniform requirements for audit committees. This paper argues that requirements for audit committees should be consistent to improve financial reporting in a global securities marketplace. Results suggest that boards of directors and their audit committees of non-U.S. sample firms before the enactment of the U.S. requirements will need to exhibit greater alignment of their audit committee’s structure and composition with the recent U.S. requirements for audit committees.

Louis Braiotta

THE IMPACT OF U.S. REQUIREMENTS FOR AUDIT COMMITTEES ON THE STRUCTURE AND MEMBERSHIP OF NON-U.S. AUDIT COMMITTEES

美国审计委员会要求对非美国审计委员会结构和成员的影响

This paper presents the results of research analyzing reconciliations of net income and stockholders’ equity from reports prepared according to Germany's Commercial Code (HGB) to either International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP). We describe the distribution of the reconciling items and assess their value relevance to firm market values 3 months after the financial statement date. The work helps to identify many issues not apparent from research that focuses only on promulgated accounting standards. Among other things, the research presented in this paper demonstrates that, when reconciling to IFRS or US GAAP, German companies must reverse significant software and film licensing revenue. Other areas of significant difference, not surprisingly, show greater conservatism in reporting under HGB than IFRS or US GAAP, particularly in asset capitalizations and write-offs as well as in accruals of provisions and reserves. The latter category is value relevant to the firms’ market values after controlling for all other categories of reconciling items from HGB to either IFRS or US GAAP, indicating that German markets value these companies’ provisions and accruals under the German reporting system.

Judy Beckman

Christina Brandes

Brigitte Eierle

German Reporting Practices: An Analysis of Reconciliations from German Commercial Code to IFRS or US GAAP

德国报告实践：德国商法典与国际财务报告准则或美国通用会计准则的调节分析

Significant changes in accounting disclosure are observed in periods of economic change such as those relating to emerging capital markets and programs of privatization. Measurement of the level of accounting disclosure should ideally be designed to capture the complexity of change in order to give insight and explanation to match the causes and consequences of change. This paper shows the added interpretive value in subdividing the disclosure checklist to reflect the requirements of national accounting regulations, the location of disclosure items in the annual report, and limitations on the availability of regulations in official translation to the local language. Defining targeted disclosure categories leads to significance testing of specific aspects of changes in accounting disclosure in the Egyptian capital market in the 1990s. Strong correlation of disclosure with the presence of majority government ownership of the company and the relative activity of share trading supports the applicability of political costs and capital need theories, respectively. The relation between International Accounting Standards (IASs) disclosure and the type of audit firm points to additional theoretical explanations, including relative familiarity with the legislation and compliance features identifiable with the emerging capital market. The approach described in this paper has the potential for enhancing understanding of the complexity of accounting change in other emerging capital markets and developing economies.

Omneya H. Abdelsalam

Pauline Weetman

Measuring Accounting Disclosure in a Period of Complex Changes: The Case of Egypt

复杂变革时期会计披露的度量：以埃及为例

In this paper, we examine the relationship between international intrafirm area transfers and market metrics as measured by market-to-book value and systematic risk. Intrafirm transfers – the amount that multinational corporations charge one another for the transfer of goods, intellectual property, and services – have become an increasingly important issue for policymaking, managerial, financial, and tax purposes. This paper also examines whether international intrafirm intergeographic area transfers are attributed to corporate tax. We find that firms with a sizable volume of international intrafirm transfers have higher systematic risk than comparable firms without these transfers. We show cross-sectionally that firms engage in international transfers have a higher market-to-book ratio, suggesting that transfers add value through their effect on earnings and taxes. Consistent with Mills and Newberry (2003) and Collins, Kemsley, and Lang (1998), we document that U.S. (global) income tax is positively (negatively) related to intrafirm transfers, implying that U.S. multinational firms shifted taxable income to the United States from 1995 to 1999.

Kingsley Onwunyiri Olibe

Zabihollah Rezaee

The Effect of Volume of Intrafirm Transfers on Market Metrics

企业内部转移量对市场指标的影响

This study examines the perceptions of the users of annual corporate reports in Saudi Arabia. The focus is on the use, importance, and technicality of the different sources of corporate information contained in Saudi annual reports. Our sample comprises five major user groups, namely individual investors, institutional investors, creditors, government officials, and financial analysts. In comparison with previous research efforts elsewhere around the world, this study found that the balance sheet and the income statement are the most important sections of the annual report to most of the Saudi users’ groups. The board of directors’ report was found to be the least popular. Individual investors were found to place much less importance on the cash flow statement, a finding that is similar to what has been reported in previous literature. Concerning the technicality of the language of Saudi annual corporate information, individual investors indicated that the language of most of the sections of the annual reports is fairly complicated. Although our findings do not indicate a serious problem with the technicality of the language of the report's sections for most of the user groups, a more simplified report would be beneficial to the individual investors.

Abdulrahman Al-Razeen

Yusuf Karbhari

An Empirical Investigation into the Importance, Use, and Technicality of Saudi Annual Corporate Information

沙特年度企业信息的重要性、使用情况及技术性实证研究

The paper has two purposes. First, it describes the financial reporting environment of Trinidad and Tobago before and after the adoption of International Accounting Standards (IAS) (currently called International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)) as the national standards of Trinidad and Tobago. Second, it examines the association between the adoption of IAS as the national standards of Trinidad and Tobago and the degree of uniformity of financial reporting among public companies. This study is useful because of the dearth of research on financial reporting in the English-speaking Caribbean and the effect of IAS on the degree of financial reporting uniformity within a country. Using an ex post facto research design, the financial statements of 18 publicly traded firms for the year immediately prior to the adoption of IAS (1987) and four years during the period following the adoption of IAS (1995, 1999, 2002 and 2003) were subjected to content analysis. Overall, the uniformity of financial reporting practices among publicly traded firms in Trinidad and Tobago increased following the adoption of IAS. This finding was fairly uniform across all the financial statement items examined though the magnitude of the change varied. It was directly attributed to the adoption of IAS for only three financial statement elements.

出版信息	出版商: JAI Press，出版周期: ，期刊类型: book-series，开源期刊: 否
基本数据	创刊年份: 2001，原创研究文献占比: ，自引率:， Gold OA占比:

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