Turning lastiy to value relevance, we expect that firms with higher quality accounting have a higher association between stock prices and earnings and equity book value because higher quality earnings better reflect a firm’s underlying economics (Barth, Beaver, and Landsman [2001]). First, higher quality accounting results from applying accounting standards that require recognition of amounts that are intended to faithfully represent a firm’s underlying economics. Second, higher quality accounting is less subject to opportunistic managerial discretion. These two features of higher quality accounting are linked together by Ewert and Wagenhofer [2005], who show that accounting standards that limit opportunistic discretion result in accounting earnings tiiat have higher value relevance. Third, higher quality accounting has less nonopportunistic error in estimating accruals. Consis¬tent with these three features of higher quality accounting, prior empirical research suggests tiiat higher quality earnings are more value relevant (Lang, Raedy, and Yetman [2003], Leuz, Nanda, and Wysocki [2003], Lang, Raedy, and Wilson [2006]). Accordingly, we predict tiiat firms applying IAS exhibit higher value relevance of net income and equity book value than firms applying domestic standards.