Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 5, No 1 (2009)

Abstract

Accounting standards that are mostly compatible with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are required for consolidated financial statements of all Turkish listed firms starting from 2005 fiscal year end. Before that, financial reporting in Turkey was closely related to tax reporting. Until 2003, all Turkish listed firms were preparing their financial statements in accordance with the local standards issued by the Capital Market Board of Turkey. In this study, I examine the relative and incremental value relevance of earnings and the book value of equity under Capital Market Board (CMB) Accounting Standards (2001-2002) and under IFRS (2005-2006) for Turkish listed firms. I compare these two periods to investigate whether the mandatory adoption of IFRS increase relevance of earnings and book value of equity which are accepted as proxies of accounting quality. I find evidence that the value relevance of earnings and book value of equity has increased significantly after adopting IFRS. In addition, I find that the incremental value relevance of earnings increased between the CMB accounting standards period and the IFRS period. However, the incremental value relevance of book value of equity degreased in the same period.