This study investigates whether mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has affected the long-term cost of equity and debt in Latin America, where the enforcement of accounting standards and investor protection mechanisms are weak in comparison to developed nations. Analyzing a sample of firms from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, we show that mandatory IFRS adoption led to reduction in the cost of equity even after controlling for firm-level reporting incentives. Test results also show that the cost of debt was reduced significantly after the IFRS adoption. Our results suggest that enhanced disclosure and comparability stemming from IFRS in comparison to previous domestic accounting standards helped to mitigate the information asymmetry problem, and resulted in positive economic consequences for Latin American firms.

Introduction

The movement towards mandating the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is considered the most widespread global financial reform in accounting history (Daske, Hail, Leuz, & Verdi, 2008). The premise of these standards is to improve the transparency and reliability of financial statements across the globe and facilitate cross border investments. As a result of this global dimension, determining the economic consequences of the accounting standards as part of financial regulatory reforms is both more challenging and important as more countries with diverse levels of development adopt IFRS (Zeff, 2012). A considerable body of literature investigates the economic effects of IFRS adoption in developed nations (Barth, Landsman, & Lang, 2008; Daske et al., 2008; Houqe, Monem, & Zijl, 2016) 1 . They report the consequences of the adoption of IFRS on several different users, including accountants, investors, analysts, governments and international regulators. However, few studies have investigated these effects in the Latin American context (Pelucio-Grecco, Geron, Grecco, & Lima, 2014; Rodríguez, Cortez, Méndez, & Garza, 2017). Examining these effects have significant potential economic and social implications for emerging countries, which can impact both national and international users of accounting information. Therefore, regulators are interested in whether adopting IFRS may have contributed toward reducing the cost of capital and consequentially signalling an increase in market efficiency and market liquidity (Han et al., 2016).