The value relevance of inflation-adjusted and historical-cost earnings during hyperinflation

Abstract

In Israel, publicly traded companies have been required to present financial statements based on the real purchasing power of the Israeli currency since 1985. Supplementary historical-cost data are provided in detailed notes to the financial statements including the balance sheet and the income statement. In the U.S., the FASB (1986) made the requirement to disclose the effect of price changes on earnings optional (SFAS 89). Consequently, publicly traded companies began suppressing inflation-adjusted earnings (IAE) disclosures. Most studies conclude that current cost earnings and constant dollar earnings provided marginal or even no information content in the U.S. This study examines the value relevance of unexpected IAEs and historical-cost earnings (HCE) in the Israeli hyperinflationary environment. A sample of 106 publicly traded manufacturing firms is used. The sample comprises over 97 percent of the publicly traded manufacturers in Israel during the mid-1980s. Cross-sectional annual and pooled regression models are estimated across the triple-digit annual inflation rates from 1984 through 1985 and the double-digit rates from 1986 through 1988. The results show that unexpected IAEs are value-relevant beyond unexpected HCEs, which are not value-relevant to investors in the hyperinflationary Israeli economy. The findings tend to be statistically significant when unanticipated inflation rates are notably high.