The purpose of this study is to investigate whether firms' auditor choice relates to national culture. We construct a novel measure of secretiveness based on Hofstede's (1980) cultural factors. Using a very large sample of firms from 37 countries and controlling for a number of firm- and...

The adoption of international accounting standards, namely the IFRS, at the country level has sparked two contrasting, but not mutually exclusive, viewpoints. One view is that IFRS engenders better reporting standards and uniform adoption allows for greater comparability. The upshot is that IFRS...

This study examines whether application of IFRS by non-US firms results in accounting amounts comparable to those resulting from application of US GAAP by US firms. IFRS firms have greater accounting system and value relevance comparability with US firms when IFRS firms apply IFRS than when they...

This article argues that the European Union (EU) has been instrumental in moving the United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from a policy of national treatment of foreign (non-US) issuers to a policy of mutual recognition of financial disclosure regulation based on...

This study examines how five financial reporting and disclosure quality proxies are related to emerging markets (EM) firms' cross-listing choices and their access to the global capital market. Our five financial reporting and disclosure quality proxies are transparency of the annual report,...

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have recently been adopted in a number of jurisdictions, including the European Union. Despite the importance of IFRS in the context of global accounting standards harmonization, little is known regarding what institutional factors influence...

Lang, Raedy and Wilson (2006) examine the properties of U.S. GAAP accounting numbers provided by cross-listed firms and compare them to those of U.S. firms. Using a wide range of properties related to earnings management, timely loss recognition, and value relevance, LRW show that accounting...

This paper examines the trading volume reaction to the reconciliation of IAS-based earnings to U.S. GAAP on Form 20-F filed during the period of 1995-2001. The sample includes all non-U.S. firms that use IAS as their primary reporting standards and reconcile their earnings to U.S. GAAP in their...

In this study we compare the timeliness and conservatism of reported earnings across the U.S. and U.K. GAAP regimes. We present a theoretical model of the differential speeds of recognition of good news and bad news. This suggests informative and relatively robust ways of measuring dimensions of...

More than 120 countries require or permit the use of International Financial Reporting Standards (lsquo;IFRS') by publicly listed companies on the basis of higher information quality and accounting comparability from IFRS application. However, the empirical evidence about these presumed benefits...