The Relation between Income Smoothing, Earnings Persistence and IFRS Adoption

Abstract

This research approaches the influence of smoothing on persistence, two time-series properties of the same earnings stream, considering the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), in Brazil. This influence is interesting from the possibility of the disclosure to inform stability to influence the information quality for valuation. The objective was to investigate whether the IFRS adoption modified the smoothing-persistence relation. We inserted dummies in autoregressive models, to identify the influence of smoothing on persistence regarding different accounting environments. The findings show that (i) the IFRS adoption increased the quality of earnings; (ii) the IFRS shifted the role of smoothing, that previously increased and then decreased the persistence; and (iii) the smoothing suppressed the benefits for information quality brought by IFRS adoption. We conclude that IFRS increased the informational level of earnings, evidencing that interferences to mitigate impacts on reported income ceased to increase and started to decrease its usefulness.