The value relevance and reliability of intangible assets: Evidence from Australia before and after adopting IFRS

Xu-Dong Ji, Wei Lu

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

    25 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The purpose of this paper is to examine the value relevance of intangible assets, including goodwill and other types of intangibles in the pre- and post-adoption periods of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Most importantly, this paper investigates whether the value relevance of reported intangible assets is associated with their value reliability. Furthermore, this paper reports whether the adoption of IFRS improves the value relevance of intangible assets and alters the relationship between value relevance and reliability. Both price and return models based on Ohlosn theory (1995) are employed to test the value relevance and value reliability of intangibles. Australian-listed firms with capitalised intangibles from 2001 to 2009 are selected in this study. The sample includes 6,650 firm-year observations. The main result shows that capitalised intangible assets are value relevant in Australia, in both the pre- and post-adoption of IFRS periods. Value relevance is higher in firms with more reliable information on intangible assets. This study finds that the value relevance of intangibles has declined in the post-adoption period of IFRS. However, the positive relationship between the value relevance and the reliability of intangibles has remained unchanged in the post-adoption period.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)182 - 216
    Number of pages35
    JournalAsian Review of Accounting
    Volume22
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2014

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