Disclosure compliance with national accounting standards by listed companies in South Asia

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the level of compliance with disclosure requirements mandated by 14 national accounting standards for a large sample of companies within the three major countries in South Asia, namely India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and evaluates the corporate attributes which influence the degree of compliance with these standards. Using a scoring system to develop a total compliance index (TCI) for each sample company, the results indicate significant variation in total disclosure compliance levels across countries and different national accounting standards. Compliance levels are found to be positively related to company size, profitability and multinational-company status, and unrelated to leverage levels and the quality of external auditors.