IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/joares/v47y2009i5p1167-1199.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do IFRS Reconciliations Convey Information? The Effect of Debt Contracting

Author

Listed:
  • HANS B. CHRISTENSEN
  • EDWARD LEE
  • MARTIN WALKER

Abstract

We examine whether earnings reconciliation from U.K. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) convey information. As a result of debt contracting, mandatory accounting changes are expected to affect the likelihood of violating existing covenants based on rolling GAAP, leading to a redistribution of wealth between shareholders and lenders. Consistent with this prediction, we find significant market reactions to IFRS reconciliation announcements. These market reactions are more pronounced among firms that face a greater likelihood and costs of covenant violation and early announcements. While the association between later announcements and weaker market reactions is consistent with contractual implications of technical changes to earnings, which investors quickly learn to predict, it is inconsistent with IFRS forcing all firms in the sample to reveal firm‐specific information through accruals. Thus, by showing that mandatory IFRS also affects debt contracting, we expand on existing IFRS research that focuses on how accounting quality and cost of capital are impacted.

Suggested Citation

  • Hans B. Christensen & Edward Lee & Martin Walker, 2009. "Do IFRS Reconciliations Convey Information? The Effect of Debt Contracting," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 1167-1199, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:47:y:2009:i:5:p:1167-1199
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-679X.2009.00345.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2009.00345.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2009.00345.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Core, John E. & Schrand, Catherine M., 1999. "The effect of accounting-based debt covenants on equity valuation1," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-34, February.
    2. Mary E. Barth & Wayne R. Landsman & Mark H. Lang, 2008. "International Accounting Standards and Accounting Quality," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 467-498, June.
    3. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    4. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    5. Ilia D. Dichev & Douglas J. Skinner, 2002. "Large–Sample Evidence on the Debt Covenant Hypothesis," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 1091-1123, September.
    6. 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.
    7. Pope, Pf, 1993. "A Comparison Of The Value-Relevance Of United-States Versus Non-United-States Gaap Accounting Measures Using Form-20-F Reconciliations - Discussion," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31, pages 265-275.
    8. Christensen, Hans B. & Lee, Edward & Walker, Martin, 2007. "Cross-sectional variation in the economic consequences of international accounting harmonization: The case of mandatory IFRS adoption in the UK," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 341-379, December.
    9. Beatty, Anne & Ramesh, K. & Weber, Joseph, 2002. "The importance of accounting changes in debt contracts: the cost of flexibility in covenant calculations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 205-227, June.
    10. Lys, Thomas, 1984. "Mandated accounting changes and debt covenants : The case of oil and gas accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 39-65, April.
    11. 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.
    12. Sengupta, Partha, 2004. "Disclosure timing: Determinants of quarterly earnings release dates," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 457-482.
    13. Lance Moir & Sudi Sudarsanam, 2007. "Determinants of financial covenants and pricing of debt in private debt contracts: the UK evidence," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 151-166.
    14. Rees, L & Elgers, P, 1997. "The market's valuation of nonreported accounting measures: Retrospective reconciliations of non-US and US GAAP," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 115-127.
    15. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Chan, Ann L.-C. & Hsu, Audrey W.-H. & Lee, Edward, 2015. "Mandatory adoption of IFRS and timely loss recognition across Europe: The effect of corporate finance incentives," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 70-82.
    2. Stolowy, Hervé & Jeanjean, Thomas & Erkens, Michael, 2011. "The economic consequences of increasing the international visibility of financial reports," HEC Research Papers Series 957, HEC Paris.
    3. Palea, Vera, 2014. "Are IFRS value-relevant for separate financial statements? Evidence from the Italian stock market," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-17.
    4. Sugato Chakravarty & Chiraphol N. Chiyachantana & Christine Jiang, 2011. "THE CHOICE OF TRADING VENUE AND RELATIVE PRICE IMPACT OF INSTITUTIONAL TRADING: ADRs VERSUS THE UNDERLYING SECURITIES IN THEIR LOCAL MARKETS," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 34(4), pages 537-567, December.
    5. Core, John E. & Schrand, Catherine M., 1999. "The effect of accounting-based debt covenants on equity valuation1," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-34, February.
    6. Anna Bergman Brown, 2016. "Institutional Differences and International Private Debt Markets: A Test Using Mandatory IFRS Adoption," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 679-723, June.
    7. Alan V. S. Douglas, 2003. "Corporate Investment Incentives and Accounting†Based Debt Covenants," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(4), pages 645-683, December.
    8. Bazzana, Flavio & Zadorozhnaya, Anna & Gabriele, Roberto, 2018. "The role of covenants in bond issue. The case of Russian companies," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-18.
    9. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    10. Beatty, Anne & Weber, Joseph & Yu, Jeff Jiewei, 2008. "Conservatism and Debt," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2-3), pages 154-174, August.
    11. Kravet, Todd D., 2014. "Accounting conservatism and managerial risk-taking: Corporate acquisitions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 218-240.
    12. Brian M. Burnett & Elizabeth A. Gordon & Bjorn N. Jorgensen & Cheryl L. Linthicum, 2015. "Earnings Quality: Evidence from Canadian Firms' Choice between IFRS and U.S. GAAP," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(3), pages 212-249, September.
    13. Bandyopadhyay, Sati P. & Chen, Changling & Wolfe, Mindy, 2017. "The predictive ability of investment property fair value adjustments under IFRS and the role of accounting conservatism," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-14.
    14. Lance Moir & Sudi Sudarsanam, 2007. "Determinants of financial covenants and pricing of debt in private debt contracts: the UK evidence," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 151-166.
    15. 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.
    16. Abed Al-Nasser Abdallah & Wissam Abdallah & Feras M. Salama, 2018. "The Market Reaction to the Adoption of IFRS in the European Insurance Industry," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(4), pages 653-703, October.
    17. Kim, Oksana, 2016. "The IFRS Adoption Reform through the Lens of Neoinstitutionalism: The Case of the Russian Federation," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 345-362.
    18. Thomas Jeanjean & Hervé Stolowy & Michael Erkens, 2012. "Economic consequences of adopting English for annual reports," Post-Print hal-00690931, HAL.
    19. Alessandro Mechelli & Riccardo Cimini, 2021. "The effect of corporate governance and investor protection environments on the value relevance of new accounting standards: the case of IFRS 9 and IAS 39," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(4), pages 1241-1266, December.
    20. Adhikari, Ajay & Bansal, Manish & Kumar, Ashish, 2021. "IFRS convergence and accounting quality: India a case study," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).

    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:joares:v:47:y:2009:i:5:p:1167-1199. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-8456 .

    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.