IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/abacus/v55y2019i1p237-272.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Financial Reporting Still Useful? Australian Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Davern
  • Nikole Gyles
  • Dean Hanlon
  • Matthew Pinnuck

Abstract

There has been recent and growing criticism of the usefulness of financial reporting for investors, particularly the annual financial statements. In response, the IASB is pursuing several projects aimed at improving the relevance of financial information. To inform the IASB’s work, we investigate, using a mixed‐method approach, the extent and nature of the use of annual financial statements by equity investors. We examine the relevance of financial reporting for equity valuation in Australia across time. We find that financial reporting (specifically, reported net income, shareholders’ equity, and operating cash flows) remains relevant for investment decisions. We further support this finding with evidence from field interviews that provide insight into how and why financial statements are used by equity investors. The field evidence also demonstrates that no one financial statement dominates in investor decision making. Given the increasing availability of more timely, forward‐looking information from alternative sources, we examine the relevance of non‐GAAP financial information and other non‐financial information for investor decision making. We find that non‐GAAP financial information (as proxied by EBIT and EBITDA) is more value relevant than statutory measures. We further find a broad range of non‐financial information is utilized by investors in making investment decisions both as a ‘screen’ and for valuation purposes. Our findings inform regulators and other stakeholders as we provide evidence of the continuing relevance of financial statements and the complementary role of non‐GAAP financial and other information. Our evidence provides a rebuttal to the recent criticism.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Davern & Nikole Gyles & Dean Hanlon & Matthew Pinnuck, 2019. "Is Financial Reporting Still Useful? Australian Evidence," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 55(1), pages 237-272, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:abacus:v:55:y:2019:i:1:p:237-272
    DOI: 10.1111/abac.12152
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12152
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/abac.12152?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sascha B. Herr & Peter Lorson & Jochen Pilhofer, 2022. "Alternative Performance Measures: A Structured Literature Review of Research in Academic and Professional Journals," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 389-451, September.
    2. Shao-Huai Liang & Yu-Ting Hsieh & Hsuan-Chu Lin & Hui-Yu Hsiao, 2023. "What underlies key audit matters? Evidence from Taiwan," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 1243-1258, April.
    3. Alam, Nurul & Gao, Junbin & Jones, Stewart, 2021. "Corporate failure prediction: An evaluation of deep learning vs discrete hazard models," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    4. Yitang (Jenny) Yang & Roger Simnett, 2020. "Financial Reporting by Charities: Why Do Some Choose to Report Under a More Extensive Reporting Framework?," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 56(3), pages 320-347, September.
    5. Robert Kim, 2023. "Do more able managers provide better non‐GAAP earnings?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(2), pages 1983-2012, June.
    6. Durocher, Sylvain & Georgiou, Omiros, 2022. "Framing accounting for goodwill: Intractable controversies between users and standard setters," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. ILIA D. Dichev, 2021. "Re‐orienting the Statement of Cash Flows Around Cash Flows to Equity Holders," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 57(3), pages 407-420, September.
    8. Claudia Arena & Simona Catuogno & Nicola Moscariello, 2021. "The unusual debate on non-GAAP reporting in the current standard practice. The lens of corporate governance," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(3), pages 655-684, September.
    9. Lorenzo Simoni & Stefan Schaper & Christian Nielsen, 2022. "Business Model Disclosures, Market Values, and Earnings Persistence: Evidence From the UK," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 58(1), pages 142-173, March.
    10. Migliavacca, Alessandro, 2024. "Value relevance of accounting numbers and sustainability information in Europe: Empirical evidence from nonfinancial companies," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    11. Chen, Chen & Hanlon, Dean & Khedmati, Mehdi & Wake, James, 2023. "Annual report readability and equity mispricing," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3).
    12. Guilherme Belloque & Martina K Linnenluecke & Mauricio Marrone & Abhay K Singh & Rui Xue, 2021. "55 years of Abacus: Evolution of Research Streams and Future Research Directions," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 57(3), pages 593-618, September.

    More about this item

    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:bla:abacus:v:55:y:2019:i:1:p:237-272. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0001-3072 .

    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.