Usefulness of financial reporting : fair value accounting, evidence from Malaysia

Abstract

Usefulness of financial reporting comprises of relevance and faithful representation. The former is measured by value relevance and earnings persistence, whereas the latter is measured by earnings management (EM). Thus, this study’s objectives are to examine the value relevance and earnings persistence of FV model in comparison to HC model. Another objective of this research is to compare earnings management in companies that applied the FV and HC models. Finally, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic period on the value relevance and earnings persistence in these companies is addressed. This study investigates the usefulness of financial reporting specifically the fair value (FV) model for investment property (IP) in Malaysia. The usefulness of FV is evaluated in comparison to the Historical Cost (HC) model. This research employed Positive Accounting Theory and semi-strong form of Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) to frame the hypotheses. In addition, the test of value relevance uses the Ohlson model. Secondary data were collected from 128 listed companies on Bursa Malaysia that held substantial amounts of IPs as their assets in the financial statement. The sample period of the study was 2018, 2019 and 2020. According to the regression results, overall findings indicate that financial reporting particularly the FV model for IP is useful. FV is more value relevant compared to the HC model. However, earnings are less value relevant in the FV model compared to the HC model. In the earnings persistence test, earnings were more persistent in the HC model in comparison to the FV model. Thus, both FV and HC models are useful under different measures of relevance. Moreover, this study has not found strong evidence to support that FV model is used for EM purposes, at least not in the case of IP listed companies in Malaysia. The FV and HC models' value relevance and earnings persistence are not significantly impacted by COVID-19. However, the value relevance of FV seem to decline and EM, measured by positive discretionary accruals, was higher in the year 2020 compared to the HC model. The findings of this study suggest that it is consistent with the EMH, at least the semi-strong form. Finally, the findings of this study could be of interest to companies with IPs, stakeholders, regulators and accounting researchers as the findings reveal that both models have their own advantages in terms of usefulness. Hence, it is suggested to regulators to consider dual measurements for financial statements to be truly useful.