We examine the empirical determinants of debt-maturity structure of 266 firms listed on the KSE over the period 2000 to 2004 using several variants of dynamic panel data models. We find mixed support for the agency cost hypothesis as our results show that debtmaturity increases with the size of the firm; however, growth options do not have any significant influence on debt-maturity structure. Our results lend unambiguous support to the maturity-matching hypothesis as debt-maturity varies inversely with operating activities and directly with the maturity of long-lived assets. Finally, we find evidence that supports the taxbased hypothesis but no evidence to support the signaling hypothesis. Moreover, the results demonstrate that there is a significant dynamic component in the determination of optimal debt-maturity structure of the sampled firms. JEL classification: G32 Keywords: Debt Maturity, Capital Structure, Panel Data, GMM, Pakistan.

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Using an event-study methodology, this study investigates whether the information content of earnings announcements changed for firms traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the Canadian Venture Exchange (TSXV) following mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Canada. A priori, it may be argued that the information content of earnings would increase for both TSX and TSXV firms if IFRS earnings provided more value-relevant information than Canadian GAAP earnings. Increased value relevance of information provided by IFRS earnings would likely reflect increased measurement of changes in net asset values based on expectations as opposed to realizations. Because values based on expectations are subject to greater divergence of opinion than values based on realizations, greater value relevance is likely to be accompanied by higher abnormal return volatility and abnormal trading volume during announcement periods. Consistent with this argument, we find that abnormal volatility and abnormal volume during earnings announcement periods were higher in post-IFRS announcement periods than in pre-IFRS announcement periods for firms traded on the TSX. We discriminate across the two exchanges in terms of information quality based on the mix of institutional and retail investors, analyst following, concentration in the oil, gas and mining sectors, and size of firm. We test for a residual difference in information content based on the more speculative nature of the TSXV exchange and find some evidence that divergence of opinion was higher for TSXV firms than TSX firms in the pre-IFRS period but this residual difference does not carry through to the post-IFRS period.

We examine cross-sectional differences in changes in liquidity for Canadian firms between pre-IFRS and post-IFRS adoption based on their pre-IFRS disclosure quality. In a matched sample analysis, with U.S. firms acting as control firms, we find that liquidity improved after mandatory IFRS adoption for Canadian companies with high pre-IFRS disclosure quality but declined for Canadian companies with low pre-IFRS disclosure quality, in comparison to U.S. peers. We find similar results when we stratify the sample based on total assets - larger Canadian firms gained liquidity while smaller Canadian firms lost liquidity, relative to the U.S. control firms. Our results are sustained when we use firms listed in Canada that report under U.S. GAAP before and after IFRS adoption as control firms.