Pascale Delvaille

The Measurement of Harmonisation and the Comparability of Financial Statement Items: Within-Country and Between-Country Effects

Abstract This paper reports on an analysis of accounting policy choices made by European companies with an international shareholding. The accounting policies analysed in depth in this paper comprise the treatment of goodwill and accounting for deferred taxation. In the paper, the van der Tas comparability index is developed by separating the index into two components relating to the within-country (intra-national) effects of domestic standardisation and the between-country (inter-national) effects of harmonisation. It is shown in this paper that the value of the index may be interpreted as the probability that two companies selected at random will report financial information that is comparable, and that the lowest level of comparability exists when the accounting methods are assumed to be distributed equiprobably over the companies, the outcome of a random selection of accounting policies. The paper also considers the problems of non-disclosure, and a comprehensive ‘disclosure-adjusted’ comparability in...

International Financial Reporting Convergence: Evidence from Three Continental European Countries

Abstract Listed companies in the European Union are required to apply International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in their consolidated accounts as of 1 January 2005. The purpose of this paper is to compare developments in France, Germany and Italy and the approaches to integrate the current European accounting reform processes with IFRS. The paper evaluates the adaptation of national accounting systems with respect to institutional and regulatory changes on the one hand and financial reporting changes on the other.