Determinants of IAS Disclosure Compliance in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Exchangelisted Companies in Bangladesh

Abstract

The study is an attempt to examine empirically the level of disclosure of financial information upon adoption of International Accounting Standards (IASs) in Bangladesh and the association between a number of corporate attributes and levels of disclosure in corporate annual reports in Bangladesh. An unweighted disclosure index comprising 411 items was prepared and applied to 188 corporate annual reports for years ending between January and December 2003. The association between the extent of disclosure and various corporate characteristics was examined using multiple linear regression models. It was found that corporate size, profitability, stock exchange security category (Zcategory or not), size and international link of company's auditor, and multinational subsidiary are all significantly associated with the extent of disclosure. The results were consistent with some previous studies while they contradict with the findings of some other studies.