The Effect of Voluntary Early SFAS No.35 Adoption on the Relative Value-Relevance of Equity Book Value and Earnings in Taiwan

Many accounting studies explore the relative value-relevance of equity book value and earnings under different settings. The asset impairment recognitions required by SFAS No.35 in Taiwan, which is effective for 2005 annual reports but early adoption is encouraged, provides an even more interesting context for examining investors’ perceptions of the value-relevance changes in accounting numbers for listed firms with voluntary early-adoption of this new standard. This study explores the prediction, based on the inference that early SFAS No.35 adoption makes both equity book value approach its economic value and earnings more noisy than before, that the value-relevance of equity book value (earnings) increases (decreases) as firms voluntarily adopt this new accounting standard early. The empirical result indicates that the overall value-relevance of accounting numbers is deteriorated for listed firms with voluntary early SFAS No.35 adoption, in comparison with listed firms without voluntary early adoption. This can be attributed to the significantly declined incremental explanatory power and the relative value-relevance that current earnings have for the stock price. Furthermore, our results provide evidence that the relative value-relevance and incremental explanatory power of equity book value increase for the early adopters compared to non-early adopters. These results remain robust to the various specification tests. In terms of the relative value-relevance of financial statement components, this study provides insights into the quality of financial information provided to the market after the new standard is implemented.