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This study aims to examine the economic cost imposed by capital markets of section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 on conflict minerals (CM). The authors analyse a sample of first-time CM disclosures made by US companies in 2010-2012.

The authors measure the market response to these disclosures and compare it to the response of a matched control sample of non-disclosers. An overall negative response could arise from regulatory costs, changes in management decision making, or customers' social concerns about CM. An overall positive response could reflect the benefits of disclosure transparency.

The authors find that the negative effects of the disclosures outweigh any positive effects. The authors also find more limited negative effects for the control sample, since they are likely to be future CM disclosers.

Because companies' balance sheets do not report these negative effects, the results imply that investors price supply chain activities related to CM as an off-balance sheet liability.

The results agree with companies' assertions of a substantial cost to implement the CM provision. The authors estimate an aggregate loss of shareholder value for the sample of $6.5 to $13.1 billion.

These results show that regulators' and stakeholders' demands for increased transparency can be costly to shareholders when the disclosures induce changes in management decision making and raise customers' social concerns about supply chain sustainability.

The study is the first to examine the economic effects of companies' initial disclosures about CM under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

This paper examines the effect that the introduction of the FRS 9, the general disclosure standard in New Zealand, has on the level of disclosure of certain unspecified operating expenses. Generally, a low level of operating expense disclosure was found with no overall improvement recorded after the introduction of FRS 9. In many cases, companies did not disclose any unspecified operating expenses. Firm size and overseas listing/ownership appeared to be positively associated with the disclosure of unspecified operating expenses. Most companies did disclose the mandatory expenses monitored (depreciation, audit and directors' fees). Commentary is provided on the inadequacy of the discretionary aspects of accounting standards such as FRS 9, and the inadequacy of regulatory enforcement. Given the move to international harmonisation, and the level of disclosure seemingly at odds with international practice, the adoption and enforcement of International Accounting Standard 1 (IAS 1) would provide a simple solution.

This paper examines the Random Walk Hypothesis (RWH) for aggregate New Zealand share market returns, as well as the CRSP NYSE‐AMEX (USA) index during the 1980‐2001 period. Using several indices, we rely on the variance‐ratio test and find evidence to support the rejection of the RWH with some evidence of a momentum effect. However, we find evidence to suggest the behaviour of share prices to be time‐dependent in New Zealand. For example, we find the indices tested were closer to random after the 1987 share market crash. Further analysis showed even stronger results for periods subsequent to the passage of the Companies Act 1993 and the Financial Reporting Act 1993. We also find evidence that indices based on large capitalisation stocks are more likely to follow a random walk compared to those based on smaller stocks. For the USA index, we find stronger evidence of random behaviour in our sample period compared to the earlier period examined by Lo and Mackinlay (1988)

The purpose of this paper is to provide editorial insight into recent developments in financial accounting issues in the Pacific Rim area. The paper aims to focus on the impact of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) and provide a commentary, as well as context, for the papers that appear in this special issue.

The paper reviews and comments on several relevant academic papers and regulatory releases.

This paper outlines several key developments in the Pacific Rim region since the decision by Australia and New Zealand to adopt IFRS. The proposed adoption of IFRS in other countries is examined, and noted are the successes and tensions that one set of global accounting standards creates. The contributions of four papers are outlined in this special issue to this debate, and provide suggestions for future research.

This review should be of relevance to academics, the profession, and regulators, by providing academic insights into the current debate about the costs and benefits of IFRS.

This paper offers a contemporary analysis of the success and challenges of IFRS adoption in the Pacific Rim area.

The purpose of this paper is to examine compliance with operating expense disclosure provisions contained in New Zealand approved accounting standards before and after the move to New Zealand equivalents to international financial reporting standards (NZ IFRS). Prior research showed poor disclosure practices and the paper seeks to determine if this has improved under international accounting standards for those who choose to adopt NZ IFRS prior to mandatory adoption.

An empirical archival approach is used. While the sample size of early adopters is small, it does provide the unique ability to control for any temporal effects on disclosure practices.

Full compliance with operating expenses that are mandated such as depreciation, directors and auditor fees under both NZ financial reporting standards (NZ FRS) and NZ IFRS was found. However, unspecified operating expense disclosures are still poor for those using NZ FRS. A substantial improvement was found in unspecified disclosure levels for those companies using the New Zealand equivalent to international accounting standard 1 (NZ IAS 1). However, the results also show areas of concern, for example, 14 per cent of listed companies using NZ IAS 1 did not disclose any unspecified expense items and 27 per cent of listed companies disclosed only one item.

The results should be of relevance to preparers, analysts and regulators. The preliminary results were provided to the New Zealand Securities Commission. After its own analysis, it issued a statement expressing concern with the high level of unexplained expenses in financial statements.

Adequate disclosure is considered a crucial element to help ensure efficient capital markets. The paper provides empirical insights into operating expense disclosure based on the requirements and wording contained within NZ FRS and NZ IFRS.

This paper aims to provide an investigation into whether financial analysts' forecast accuracy differs between the pre‐ and post‐adoption of the international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in the Asia‐Pacific region, namely, for the countries of Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand. In particular, this study seeks to examine whether the treatment of intangibles capitalized in the post‐IFRS period have positively aided analysts in forecasting future earnings of a firm.

Panel data analysis is applied over a period from 2001 to 2008.

Evidence is found to show intangibles capitalized under the new recognition and measurement rules of IFRS are negatively associated with analysts' earnings forecast errors. The results are robust to several model specifications across each of the countries, suggesting that the adoption of IFRS may indeed provide more value‐relevant information in financial statements for the users of financial reports.

This paper analyzed whether the adoption of IFRS has led to any changes in the accuracy of earnings forecasts. The results will be of help to analysts' earnings forecast activity and those with interest in the subject.

Australia's early adoption of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in 2005 was influenced by the argument that the quality of financial reporting would be improved as a result. The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical review of quality in relation to financial reporting in Australia by investigating how the qualitative characteristics of relevance, reliability, comparability and understandability developed in Australia between 1961 and 2004.

This paper reviews the relevant academic and professional literature during the period as well as reporting on a survey of academics and others who contributed to debates about the characteristics of accounting.

In Australia the notion of “quality” can be captured by relevance, reliability, comparability and understandability although the names and descriptions of these elements have been debated over a 40‐year period. The paper contends that the exact meanings of those elements in relation to financial reporting remain unresolved, in spite of their adoption by the AASB Framework (2004) as the qualitative characteristics of accounting information.

Future research into the qualitative characteristics in Australia, which include questions such as the extent to which certain reporting practices or standards meet the requirements of one or more of the qualitative characteristics could be based on the historical development of these characteristics, as described in this paper. This paper also identifies critical areas that require further dialogue between researchers, standard setters and users of general purpose financial statements.

This paper describes links between a comprehensive list of attributes of accounting information that have been considered important over the past 40 years, and the four qualitative characteristics adopted by the AASB Framework. It also provides a history of contemporary accounting dilemmas, and reveals a lack of resolution to issues associated with each of the qualitative characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the financial statement impacts of adopting NZ IFRS during 2005 through 2008.

The effects of NZ IFRS on the financial statements and ratios of first‐time adopters of NZ IFRS for a stratified random sample of 56 listed companies is analysed. In total, 16 of these were early adopters and 40 of which waited until adoption of NZ IFRS became mandatory. The analysis of the financial statement impact of NZ IFRS is conducted in the context of the accounting choice literature.

The results show that 87 per cent of firms are affected by NZ IFRS. The median and inter‐quartile ranges indicate that for most firms the impact of NZ IFRS is small. However, the maximum and minimum values indicate the impact can be large for some entities. The impact has considerable effects on common financial ratios.

The usual limitations applicable to small samples apply.

The findings may be useful to regulators and policy makers reviewing financial reporting requirements.

This study is the first to offer a comprehensive empirical analysis of the effect of adopting IFRS on financial statements in New Zealand, as well as on selected key ratios of interest to financial analysts. The data used are more recent than most IAS or IFRS studies around the world and are stratified to allow for comparison between voluntary/early adopters and mandatory/late adopters.

Research on creative workers speaks to the relative lack of job opportunities available, the role that changing production logics play in shaping such opportunities, and gender disparities in success. Tracking 22,561 hits found on Billboard's mainstream charts, we examine various factors that may spur or hamper the success of female recording acts. We find that the expanding logic of decentralized production eliminates the negative effect of concentration on the success of female acts and that the presence of successful female acts in one period bodes well for subsequent female acts, until a glass ceiling of sorts is reached.