Do IFRS Promote Transparency? Evidence from the Bankruptcy Prediction of Privately Held Swedish and Norwegian Companies

Akarsh Kainth and Ranik Raaen Wahlstrøm
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Akarsh Kainth: Department of International Business, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 6009 Ålesund, Norway
Ranik Raaen Wahlstrøm: NTNU Business School, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway

JRFM, 2021, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-15

Abstract: The purpose of our paper is to investigate whether any differences between International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and local Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) impact the transparency of financial reporting of non-listed companies through bankruptcy prediction. This contributes to extant research that has focused on the effects of IFRS adoption in the context of listed companies. For our investigation, we used logistic regression, well-established accounting-based predictors, and a sample of financial statements from privately held Swedish companies using IFRS, and Norwegian companies using Norwegian GAAP. The results indicate that financial statements made under IFRS may be better suited for bankruptcy prediction than those made under Norwegian GAAP. Our findings suggest that the use of IFRS could aid in increasing the informativeness of financial reports by promoting transparency and prevent managers of firms facing insolvency from engaging in creative accounting practices. Our results should, however, be applied with caution, as they may be due to the differences in characteristics across firms that are not captured by our research design. We leave this issue open to future research.

Keywords: IFRS; accounting standards and principles; bankruptcy prediction; transparency; privately held companies; Norwegian GAAP; logistic regression; accounting-based predictors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C E F2 F3 G (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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