This study examines managers' use of discretion in determining goodwill impairment losses following the mandatory adoption of IFRS 3 "Business Combinations," and whether this discretion reflects opportunistic reporting by managers or the provision of their private information. Although IFRS 3 was issued to improve the accounting treatment for goodwill and provide users with more useful and value-relevant information regarding the underlying economic value of goodwill, it has been criticized on the grounds of the managerial discretion inherent in impairment testing. Therefore, ex-ante, it is unclear how the impairment-only approach has affected the reporting of goodwill impairment losses. After controlling for economic factors, empirical results reveal that managers are exercising discretion in the reporting of goodwill impairments following the adoption of IFRS 3. Specifically, goodwill impairments are more likely to be associated with recent CEO changes, income smoothing and "big bath" reporting behaviors. However, the results also indicate that goodwill impairments are strongly associated with effective governance mechanisms suggesting that managers are more likely to be exercising their accounting discretion to convey their private information about the underlying performance of the firm rather than acting opportunistically. These inferences are robust to various modeling specifications and variable definitions, suggesting that IFRS 3 has provided managers with a framework to reliably convey their private information about future cash flows consistent with the IASB's objectives in developing the impairment standard.

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This study is a commentary on the financialperformance and quality capital of Islamic versus conventional banks currentlyoperating in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. In addition toassessing the financial performance of the full set of banks across various GCCcountries, the study is the first toconsider the extent to which Islamic vs.conventional GCC banks comply with the new Basel III requirements of raising betterquality capital. The study uses bank-level data for 75 (55 conventionaland 20 Islamic) banks in Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain. Financial ratios are used tomeasure and compare Islamic vs. conventional banks performances, and weemploy a comprehensive and the most recent sample of data available in the region, consisting of cross-sections from 2003 to 2011.The results reveal that Islamic banks are, onaverage, less efficient but more profitable, more liquid, more solvent (lessrisky), and enjoyed higher internal growth rates than conventional banks during2003-2011. The results indicate that there are statistically significant differencesbetween the two types of banks, as far as profitability, solvency, and internalgrowth rate ratios are concerned; however, there are no statisticallysignificant differences in liquidity and efficiency. The results also indicatethat banks, as a whole, appear to be largely sufficiently capitalized for BaselIII. Gulf Cooperation Council banks are well positioned to absorb higherprovisions and impairment charges given the higher capital adequacy ratiosreported by most. The Common Equity Ratio, Tier 1 Capital Ratio, and Capital AdequacyRatios (CARs), for the majority of banks in 2011, comfortably satisfy theenhanced capital requirements of Basel III. The results show that Islamic bankshave, on average, noticeably higher (and significantly different) capitalratios compared to conventional institutions. With regard to theimpact of the global financial crisis on both types of the banks, the resultsindicate that Islamic banks performed better thanconventional banks during the period 2006-2009, as the former enjoys highercapitalization, higher liquidity reserves, and also maintained stronger growthcompared to conventional banks in almost countries.Findings of this study may be useful for capital-market participants, as the full set of banks across various Gulf Cooperation Councilcountries needs to be examined before any substantive conclusions can bereached about the relative performance of Islamic versus conventional banks.Further, as the full implementation of Basel III requirements will not takeplace until 2019, the results of this study will convey information that shouldencourage banks to consider the earlier implementation of Basel III capitalrequirements in order to provide themselves with a reputational boost, as wellas a competitive advantage.

Using a sample of 528 firm-year observations, drawn from the top 500 UK listed firms for 2005 and 2006, this study employs a multivariate ordinary least squares regression to assess the value relevance of goodwill impairment losses following the adoption of IFRS No. 3 “Business Combinations”. Empirical results reveal a significant negative association between reported goodwill impairment losses and market value, suggesting that these impairments are perceived by investors to reliably measure a decline in the value of goodwill and incorporated in their firm valuation assessments. The study provides evidence consistent with IASB’s objectives in developing the impairment-only standard and reinforces the argument that, through IFRS 3, managers are more likely to use their accounting discretion to convey privately held information about the underlying performance of the firms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corporate governance quality and ownership structure on the relationship between the agency cost and firm performance. Both the fixed-effects model and a more robust dynamic panel generalized method of moment estimation are applied to Chinese A-listed firms for the years 2008 to 2016. The results show that the agency–performance relationship is positively moderated by (1) corporate governance quality, (2) ownership concentration, and (3) non-state ownership. State ownership has a negative effect on the agency–performance relationship. Various robust tests of an alternative measure of agency cost confirm our main conclusions. The analysis adds to the empirical literature on agency theory by providing useful insights into how corporate governance and ownership concentration can help mitigate agency–performance relationship. It also highlights the impact of ownership type on the relationship between agency cost and firm performance. Our study supports the literature that agency cost and firm performance are negatively related to the Chinese listed firms. The investors should keep in mind the proxies of agency cost while choosing a specific stock. Secondly; the abuse of managerial appropriation is higher in state-held firms as compared to non-state firms. Policymakers can use these results to devise the investor protection rules so that managerial appropriation can be minimized.