The IFRS option to reclassify financial assets out of fair value in 2008: the roles played by regulatory capital and too-important-to-fail status

Peter Fiechter, Wayne R. Landsman (), Kenneth Peasnell and Annelies Renders
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Peter Fiechter: University of Neuchatel
Wayne R. Landsman: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kenneth Peasnell: Lancaster University
Annelies Renders: Maastricht University School of Business and Economics

Review of Accounting Studies, 2017, vol. 22, issue 4, No 8, 1698-1731

Abstract: Abstract Amendment of IAS 39 by the IASB in 2008 provided an option to reclassify investments from fair value to historical cost. We predict that too-important-to-fail (TITF) banks took less advantage of this option because the political protection they enjoyed insulated them from regulatory pressure. Banks that did not enjoy this protection had greater reason to make use of this option since doing so would protect their Tier 1 capital. As predicted, findings reveal that TITF banks made less use of the reclassification option to protect their Tier 1 capital and there is a significant moderating influence of TITF status on the incentive to reclassify investments for banks with lower regulatory capital. This finding is consistent with TITF banks placing less weight on protecting regulatory capital and thereby retaining flexibility to sell assets. Our findings provide evidence that accounting choices are affected by the importance of banks to their economies.

Keywords: Too important to fail; Fair value accounting; Bank regulation; Financial crisis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G14 G21 G28 M41 M48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11142-017-9419-x

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