We provide evidence that firms with more transparent earnings enjoy a lower cost of capital. We develop an earnings transparency measure that captures cross-sectional and intertemporal variation in the extent to which earnings and change in earnings covary contemporaneously with stock returns....

<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">ABSTRACT</heading>We examine whether application of International Accounting Standards (IAS) is associated with higher accounting quality. The application of IAS reflects combined effects of features of the financial reporting system, including standards, their interpretation, enforcement, and litigation....

We provide evidence that firms with more transparent earnings enjoy a lower cost of capital. We base our earnings transparency measure on the extent to which earnings and change in earnings covary contemporaneously with returns. We find a significant negative relation between our transparency...