Relative Effects of IFRS Adoption and IFRS Convergence on Financial Statement Comparability

Abstract

Lin, Riccardi and Wang (2016) attempt to investigate a single enhancing qualitative characteristic of financial reporting, comparability, to the exclusion of other fundamental (i.e., relevance, faithful representation) and enhancing (i.e., timeliness, understandability, verifiability) qualitative characteristics. I discuss their study in the context of the International Accounting Standards Board’s Conceptual Framework, describe their research design, provide reasons why their comparability proxy likely suffers from low internal validity, and offer suggestions for ways in which comparability-focused research can provide meaningful inferences.