We could observe differences in accounting quality for firms applying IAS for reasons other than those relating to the financial reporting system, such as firms' incentives and economic environments. Regarding incentives, because application of IAS is largely voluntary during our sample period, incentives for firms that adopt LAS could change between the pre- and posta- dopfion periods, which would result in their decision to adopt IAS. The fact that firms might adopt IAS as part of their response to changes in in¬centives could indicate that either their domestic standards do not permit them to reveal their higher accounting quality or they adopt IAS to signal their higher accounting quality because they believe the market perceives IAS are higher quality than domestic standards. Both of these explanations are consistent with IAS being associated with higher accounting quality