Lessons From Financial Crisis: Has Accounting in Central and Eastern Europe Become More Conservative?

Abstract

Recent change to a fair-value-based accounting system portends shift from traditional conservative accounting and is often considered to be one of the factors that partially contributed to the ongoing financial crisis. The main aim of this paper is to examine the level of conservatism prior and during financial crisis. Empirical analysis is conducted on the sample of listed companies from Central and Eastern Europe using panel data analysis techniques. Obtained results suggest that level of conservatism is even lower during the financial crisis than before the crisis. These findings could be of interest to accounting standard setters and regulators in the process of financial reporting quality improvement.

Key words:

• Accounting conservatism
• Financial crisis
• Earnings quality
• Financial reporting