Product differentiation, market dynamics and the value relevance of trade payables: Evidence from UK listed firms

This paper provides a comprehensive evidence on how product and market dynamics affect the value relevance of trade payables. Using a sample of 2559 UK listed firms over the period 2005–2014, we find a positive relationship between trade payables and firm performance. Our evidence suggests that trade payables increase (decrease) performance in firms with differentiated products and demand uncertainty (larger market share). We demonstrate that the relative value relevance of bank credit versus suppliers’ credit is dependent on the nature of the product, the level of sales volatility, and market share. We use an innovative approach to assess the robustness of our results to omitted variable bias

Secrecy and Mandatory IFRS Adoption on Earnings Quality

This study examines the effect of mandatory IFRS adoption on earnings quality in countries which exhibit high financial secrecy. Earnings quality is proxied by signed abnormal accruals and earnings conservatism. Using 19,324 firm-years from 14 countries over the period 1998-2011, we find that firms in a high-secrecy country tend to report higher abnormal accruals and earnings conservatism, which results in lower earnings quality. On the other hand, we find that mandatory IFRS adoption improves earnings quality by decreasing abnormal accruals and earnings conservatism. Our study provides evidence of the interaction between national culture, as indicated by secrecy, and IFRS adoption and helps to explain differences in earnings quality across different jurisdictions following IFRS adoption