The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the mandatory adoption of IFRS/IAS and the information content of earnings in the European Union. More accurately, this study aims to determine if the effect of IFRS adoption on the level of information asymmetry, apprehended by the cost of capital and the financial analysts' forecasts, is immediate or delayed. Based on a longitudinal study, we find evidence that for the two first years of adoption, international standards reduces significantly the cost of capital and the dispersion of the financial analysts' forecasts. Furthermore, the magnitude of this effect increases with increasing the number of years after IFRS adoption. The findings further show that the effect of IFRS adoption on financial analysts' errors is not immediate and that the errors decrease from the third year following the date of the first adoption.Overall, the findings of this study highlight the importance of adopting IFRS in the reduction of information asymmetry. AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the mandatory adoption of IFRS/IAS and the information content of earnings in the European Union. More accurately, this study aims to determine if the effect of IFRS adoption on the level of information asymmetry, apprehended by the cost of capital and the financial analysts' forecasts, is immediate or delayed. Based on a longitudinal study, we find evidence that for the two first years of adoption, international standards reduces significantly the cost of capital and the dispersion of the financial analysts' forecasts. Furthermore, the magnitude of this effect increases with increasing the number of years after IFRS adoption. The findings further show that the effect of IFRS adoption on financial analysts' errors is not immediate and that the errors decrease from the third year following the date of the first adoption.Overall, the findings of this study highlight the importance of adopting IFRS in the reduction of information asymmetry. JEL Classification: M40, G34

Purpose This study aims to examine whether the internal control system quality in the French context improve the information quality having been reflected by the level of real earnings management (REM) measured by inventory overproduction, discretionary expenses reduction and sales manipulation. Design/methodology/approach The research uses a multiple regression analysis to examine the association between internal control and REM. The years 2010-2015 are used as analysis period by focusing on the French context. Three panel data are applied to the companies belonging to the Cotation Assistée en Continu (CAC) 40 index for the entire study period. Findings The results show that high internal control index has a negative impact on the REM and that better internal control indeed makes financial reporting more credible to investors. Further, the results demonstrate that control environment, risk assessment, control activities and monitor are the components that mainly affect REM. Originality/value The results contribute to the literature dealing with the relationship between internal control quality and REM by shedding light on the importance of internal control quality in improving information quality in the French context. Moreover, this study is using a quantitative measure of the internal control quality while much of the prior literature uses material weaknesses to estimate the effectiveness of internal control system.

This paper aims to examine the impact of IFRS / IAS mandatory adoption on the information asymmetry measured by the properties of financial analysts' forecasts (error and dispersion). It examines also, whether this impact differs from one company to another with regard to its growth opportunities. This study is based on a longitudinal data set (2002 – 2012) obtained from a sample of companies that belong to the CAC all tradable indexes. The results show a significant effect of these international's standards on financial analysts' forecasts, which stress the improvement of earnings' informational content. By focusing on the effect of growth opportunities, the results show also that they don't moderate significantly the relationship between IFRS and qualities of financial analysts' forecasts. This allows to conclude that IFRS are able to reflect the true value of the company regardless its growth opportunities