Key Words: International accounting practices; Valuation; Asia; Clean surplus; Conservatism
Abstract: This study examines the relation between stock prices and accounting earnings and
book values in six Asian countries: Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan,
and Thailand. The analysis is based on a residual earnings model that expresses the value of the
firm in terms of book value and residual income. The model holds for any clean surplus
accounting system. However, for finite time horizons, biased accounting may affect model
estimates. The six countries examined in this study differ in faithfulness to clean surplus
accounting as well as bias (conservatism). The study addresses two questions. First, are there
systematic differences across countries in the value relevance of accounting, and are these
differences related to accounting differences? Second, are there systematic differences in the
incremental and relative information content of book value per share (BVPS) and abnormal
(residual) earnings per share (REPS) across the countries, and are such differences related to
accounting differences? We find differences across the six countries in the explanatory power of
BVPS and REPS for firm values. Explanatory power for Taiwan and Malaysia is relatively low
while that for Korea and the Philippines is relatively high. These differences are generally
consistent with differences in accounting practice; however, since Korean accounting practice is
strongly influenced by tax law, we did not expect the high association for Korea. Second, with
respect to the incremental and relative explanatory power of BVPS and REPS, we find BVPS to
have high explanatory power in the Philippines and Korea but little in Taiwan. In all six countries
REPS has less explanatory power than BVPS in most years. Again, the evidence may be
interpreted as suggesting accounting practice affects valuation (with Korea again as the
exception). Finally, we provide evidence on the sensitivity of the timing of comparisons of stock
prices and accounting values. We find that comparing prices at year-end (even though annual
accounting information has not been released at that time), in general, provides the highest
correlation between market and accounting numbers.