Adoption of new accounting information in nigeria: is accounting information more relevant?

Abstract

This paper discussed whether there is an incremental value relevance of accounting information among Nigerian financial institutions. The study is motivated by the Report on the Observance of Standard Code (ROSC) of 2014 and 2011, which report that Nigerian accounting reporting has been marred with non-compliance, non-update, and non-disclosures of accounting information.These have contributed to the sudden fall of the Nigerian stock market from 2008 to 2009 and Nigerian financial institutions that made investors lose confidence in the Nigerian capital markets. This situation provided an opportunity to study the value relevance of accounting information among Nigerian financial institutions. The study uses 52 listed financial institutions in Nigeria. The stock return model used in value relevance studies is employed for data analysis. Data is collected from Bank Scope and Thompson Reuters Data Stream. The study findings provide more value relevance of accounting information under IFRS. Furthermore, assets and liabilities provide positive and negative significant relationships with stock returns, respectively. Lastly, the study provides evidence of the value relevance of accounting information after adopting IFRS.