Revisiting pay-performance sensitivity around IFRS adoption in Europe: the dominant role of Germany

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the effect of IFRS adoption on pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) in the European Economic Area (EEA) and show that the documented positive effect is driven by one country: Germany. In pooled country tests, we explore the effect of individual institutional attributes and find that differences between IFRS and local GAAP, as well as proxies for different types of enforcement, moderate the IFRS effect. However, these findings are contingent on including Germany in the sample. This raises the possibility that the studied institutional attributes proxy for Germany, and that it is the unique combination of institutional attributes in Germany that explains the increase in PPS at the time of IFRS adoption. Our findings suggest that researchers should be careful when generalising results from multi-country studies or attributing the IFRS effects to individual institutional variables.