type="main" <p>This paper examines the value relevance of earnings components where there is a mandatory requirement to report generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) earnings and non-GAAP earnings, and where the items to be eliminated from GAAP earnings are defined in detail. The setting...</p>

We investigate whether the special item anomaly in the U.S. exists in an environment where the separation of non-recurring items from earnings is mandated. We use South African data, as the separate disclosure of specific non-recurring items has been mandatory since 2000. Our results show that,...