Impacts of International Financial Reporting Standards adoption on cost of equity capital, financial statement value-relevance, and firms' financing and investment strategies.

The Financial Reporting Council's decison that Australia adopt Australian equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards (AIFRS) was premised on adoption reducing Australian firms' cost of equity capital, staving off the exodus of capital from Australia, and encouraging ASX listing of international firms. Counterarguments included claims of undesirable microeconomic consequences. Using pre- and post- AIFRS financial statements, this project empirically examines the impact of adopting AIFRS on:
1 firms' financing and investment strategies
2 the value-relevance of accounting information produced under national and international accounting standard-setting systems
3 firms' cost of equity capital