Three Essays on Conditional Accounting Conservatism

Accounting conservatism is one of the oldest concepts in accounting, yet it is one of the most controversial topics nowadays. While there is little debate on the existence of accounting conservatism practices, the drivers and the implications of these accounting practices show considerable divergence between accounting researchers and standard setters (such as FASB/IASB). In their 2010 conceptual frameworks, the FASB and IASB removed conservatism from the qualitative characteristics of financial reporting. This decision has been the subject of considerable criticism from accounting researchers and has sparked a new debate on the mechanisms driving accounting conservatism as well as its benefits to market participants.

This dissertation contributes to this new debate by providing three empirical essays on accounting conservatism. The first essay (Chapter 2) is part of the literature investigating the relation between accounting conservatism and corporate governance mechanisms. It documents that board attributes are important determinants of conservatism in financial reporting of French firms. The second essay (Chapter 3) extends the previous study and examines how the relation between board attributes and accounting conservatism varies across three European countries, namely, France, Germany and the UK. This essay emphasizes that the relationship between board characteristics and accounting conservatism is country dependent. Taken together, these two essays expand our understanding of how corporate governance mechanisms influence accounting quality. The third essay (Chapter 4) focuses rather on the informational benefits of accounting conservatism to financial market participants. This essay shows, in particular, that accounting conservatism improves the performance of analysts’ forecasts as well as the stock market liquidity.

Overall, the main message to take away from this research is that accounting conservatism is closely related to corporate governance mechanisms and offers a powerful tool to provide verifiable information.