Mandatory IFRS Adoption and Analyst Coverage: Evidence from the UK

Abstract

This study investigates whether the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) enforce financial analysts to cover the firms with their EPS forecast. After examining a large sample of 10,953 firm year observations from 1,467 distinct UK listed firms for the period between 1990 and 2013, the results suggest that, mandatory IFRS adoption attract more analysts to follow the firms. Where we find the number of financial analyst who cover the IFRS adopters is significantly higher than that for non-adopter firms.