We compare earnings reporting quality between a group of private companies that
switched to IFRS in the period 2005-2008 and a matched set of companies that, in the
same period, used local GAAP. Overall, our results show that IFRS did not contribute to the improvement of financial reporting quality among private companies in Italy. On the
contrary, we find evidence suggesting that the adoption of this set of standards seems to
have increased earnings management (measured by absolute AWCA) and to have led to a
deterioration of timely loss recognition. These findings suggest that the adoption of a set of
accounting standards reputed to be of better quality than national ones (Barth et al., 2008;
Leuz, 2010) does not imply, per se, better financial reporting quality.