Voluntary financial disclosure, the introduction of IFRS and long-term communication policy: An empirical test on French firms

Abstract : The purpose of this study is to determine if the process of filtering out financial information voluntary disclosed by firms was modified by the introduction of the IFRS. Voluntary information disclosed by French firms during the 2003-2008 period is compiled. This original dataset includes several years both before and after the introduction of the IFRS in the European Union in 2005. We use regression analysis to identify the determinants of the communications policies of listed firms followed in this study. We show that publication score, for some firms, indicates how much useful qualitative information is brought to the market. Particularly, we show that highly communicative firms reduce the information asymmetry as measured by the dispersion of analysts' earning forecasts. The voluntary disclosure of information and earnings forecasts by analysts are endogenous and exhibit a complex two-way relationship. Voluntary communication policies did not change with the introduction of the IFRS.