Timeliness, conservatism and financial transparent firms under the Greek accounting setting

Abstract

PurposeThis paper's aim is twofold: first, it seeks to examine the impact of financial transparency on the returns‐earnings relation and second, to test for the existence of conservative accounting between 1995 and 2004.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected from a sample of 105 non‐financial firms listed at the Athens Stock Exchange and were analyzed using ordinary least square (OLS) regression models.FindingsResults indicated that conservative accounting is existent in the Greek accounting setting, but weak evidence regarding earnings timeliness was found. Additionally, evidence was found showing that disclosure improves earnings informativeness for firms with low conservatism but not in the case of firms with high timeliness. Overall the findings suggest that there are cases where better disclosure may not result on more informative stock prices.Originality/valueThe present study adds to the existing literature by examining the issue of timeliness and conservatism within the context of an emerging capital market like Greece. To the authors' knowledge, this the first study which considers the aforementioned issues in the Greek accounting setting.