Besides the higher financial reporting quality argument, advocates of IFRS also claim
that IFRS reporting increases the comparability of firms across markets and countries
(DeFond et al. 2010), thus, facilitating cross-border investment (Lee & Fargher 2010)
and integration of capital markets (Saudagaran 2008). In light of the IFRS effects on the
capital market, the promoters of IFRS often argue that companies could access the
international capital market more easily (Christensen, Hail & Leuz 2011), especially the
ones with high levels of internationalization such as trading or raising funds in overseas
markets (Daske et al. 2009).
In addition, there are also the intangible advantages that adopting firms might be able to
benefit from when they implement additional disclosure policy under IFRS (Florou &
Pope 2012). For example, the firm may more easily access capital markets (Soderstrom
& Sun 2007), charge a higher price for products (Ray 2010), and attract more
experienced staff (Naoum, Sykianakis & Tzovas 2011) thanks to the reputation of more
transparency than their competitors (Fox et al. 2013).
In the same line of argument, previous researchers reported that “serious” IFRS
adopters experienced significant declines in their cost of capital and substantial
improvements in their market liquidity compared to ”label” adopters (Daske et al. 2009).
Accordingly, it is predicted that the IFRS related effects for first-time adopters are likely
to be greater in countries with higher quality institutions and countries with levels of
higher divergence between domestic GAAP and IFRS (Ding et al. 2007).