A comparative study of the comparability of financial reporting in the three countries of Iran, Indonesia and Italy

Standard setting committees have made it their common goal to develop high quality accounting standards for use in global capital markets. Because they believe that a common set of high-quality accounting standards increases the comparability and efficiency of financial statements and reports and enables global markets to move with less friction. In other words, increasing comparability is the ultimate goal of various professional boards and associations around the world. The aim of the research is to answer the question that, despite all the efforts to increase comparability at the international level, has this been achieved?

In the current research, 171 companies during the period of 2012-2021, 1391-1400, have been investigated using pooled/paned regression models and t-statistic with two independent samples.

The research findings show that during the research period, the comparability of financial reporting increased in Indonesia and Iran, while it decreased in Italy.

The results show that the average comparability of financial reporting in the developed country of Italy was higher than in the developing country of Iran, and lower than in the emerging country of Indonesia. Also, the average level of comparability of financial reporting in the emerging country of Indonesia has been higher compared to the developing country of Iran.

Contribution: 

Investigating the process of comparability in a comparative manner with other countries, and quantitatively calculating comparability using Barth's model, which has increased the richness and development of theoretical foundations within the country