Conclusion
This study examines the value relevance of earnings and cash flows during the precrisis, crisis and post-crisis periods in Thailand. Earnings are the important measure of firm performance and used by investors to make investing decisions. The management discretion to opportunistically manage earnings and the accrual may make earnings become a less reliable measure, especially during the financial crisis. Users of financial statements are less Many financial statement users turn to use cash flow information because cash flows are not subject to management discretion. Therefore, this study expects to find an increase in the importance of cash flows over the periods.
The results indicate that earnings better explain stock returns during the pre-crisis period. However, the ability of earnings to explain stock returns declines, especially during the financial crisis. In contrast, the ability of cash flows to explain stock returns is very low during the precrisis, but increases over the periods. Overall, the findings suggest that financial statement users tend to use more cash flow information in making investing decisions rather than limited themselves to the earnings information. The results support the value relevance of cash flows beyond earnings information. Moreover, the results should be of interest to regulators such as standard setters in considering a requirement for NPAEs to prepare the statement of cash flows in the future.