The value relevance of earnings in Europe after IFRS implementation: why do national differences persist?

Since 2005, all European listed companies must comply with IFRS in the preparation of their consolidated financial statements. Several studies have investigated the consequences of this political decision, comparing various dimensions of accounting quality before and after IFRS implementation. But they do not really address the following question: will the adoption of a common set of accounting standards result in a standardisation of accounting quality throughout Europe, or will national differences persist due to the influence of local characteristics? In order to provide evidence on this issue, we measure the value relevance of accounting earnings in 16 European countries over the period 2006-2007. The results show that country differences persist despite the use of common accounting standards, which is consistent with the idea that legal and regulatory country characteristics as well as market forces still impact the association between market returns and accounting data.