Some Disclosure Aspects Regarding Consolidated Financial Statements

The purpose of this article is to analyze the current state of consolidated reporting practice harmonization concerning the choice of presenting the income statement, the changes in equity, the methods used for presenting the cash flow statement, the extant methods for evaluating and reporting goodwill, the extant methods in which jointly controlled entities are accounted in the consolidated financial statements, or the choice for recognizing investments in subsidiaries, jointly controlled entities and associates in the separate statements of the parent company. In order to achieve our goal we selected the first 10 groups, in order of their capitalization value, that were listed on each of the following capital markets: London Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext (Paris Stock Exchange) and Deutsche Börse (Frankfurt Stock Exchange) and we analyzed, in a qualitative and in a quantitative manner, for a period of six years starting with 2007, their consolidated financial statements with the design to establish exactly which of the aspects stated in the International Financial Reporting Standards were being used for the items presented above. In order to complete the empirical research part of the paper that addresses from a comparative perspective the evaluation of the degree of material harmony between the reporting practices of groups listed on the three stock exchanges above-mentioned, we used statistical and mathematical methods represented by the I Index first described by Van der Tas. Taking into account the fact that since 2005 all listed companies on the European stock exchanges were required to adopt the international accounting standards for their consolidated financial disclosures, the degree of material harmony was studied only in reference to those requirements that presented two methods or possibilities of disclosure.Our findings suggest that the groups analyzed present a high degree of material harmonization with respect to the reporting practices considered, especially in the last three years.