In addition, some accounting quality studies at firm level argue that IFRS removes allowable
accounting choices, suggesting that IFRS provides more standardised disclosures that better
reflect a firm’s economic performance and thus is likely to increase accounting quality
(e.g. Ding et al. 2007, Bae et al. 2008, Barth et al. 2008). For instance, Barth et al. (2008)
find that firms which adopt IAS exhibit less earnings smoothing, less management of earnings
towards targets, and more timely loss recognition. Furthermore, Ashbaugh and Pincus (2001)
find that (i) analyst earnings forecast errors are positively associated with greater measurement
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and disclosure differences in their sample countries’ domestic GAAP relative to IAS and (ii) the
switch to international accounting standards decreases the absolute value of analyst forecast
errors. However, recent literature cautions against attributing the higher accounting quality for
IFRS reporting firms solely to the switch in accounting standards. Other factors such as
changes in enforcement and implementation may be attributable to the positive effects documented
in prior studies at firm level (Barth and Israeli 2013, Christensen et al. 2013).