This paper examines the behaviour and use of accruals management (AM) and real activities manipulation (RAM) under local Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and if it has been altered following IFRS implementation in Sweden, Finland and Norway. The paper takes inspiration from Roychowdhury (2006) and Zang (2012) and use previously developed frameworks for earnings management. It provides empirical results with data from 1997 to 2016, focusing on companies around zero earnings and zero earnings growth. The results are mixed where the use of RAM through production suggests increased earnings manipulation. RAM, through discretionary expenditures, on the other hand are positive, which suggests that companies do not engage in these activities. The results regarding AM suggest downward adjustments. However, neither discretionary expenditures nor AM have a significant change following IFRS implementation. Overall, earnings management behavior in the sample appears to be limited. Although, increased RAM has been found regarding production costs, which suggest adjustments following IFRS adoption. Lastly the paper finds that studying one type of earnings management behavior, as often previously done in research, is insufficient in order to fully estimate earnings management.

The new standard IFRS 16 regarding leases was implemented 1st of January 2019 with the aim to improve accounting for leases and to provide more faithful information on the financial statements. We are conducting a value relevance study to observe to contribution of IFRS 16 to more value relevant information for investors and analysts. We are adopting an adjusted version of the valuation framework developed by Ohlson (1995) to be more coherent with the expected changes due to the new standard. We measure changes in value relevance pre and post the implementation of IFRS 16 using 8 quarterly interim reports representing the fiscal years 2018 and 2019. Furthermore, we are adopting an industry adjusted model to measure if value relevance has changed more in lease prevalent industries since industries such as retail, airline and service industries are expected to experience larger changes due to the new standard. We are considering 262 companies listed on the Swedish stock market, NASDAQ Stockholm. Our results suggest that the value relevance has increased in the post period of the implementation, especially in lease heavy industries.

The thesis is devoted to recent improvements in the process of harmonization of the Russian accounting system with International Financial Reporting Standards. Firstly, it takes a look on the historical development of accounting in Russia, investigating reforms that were leading to transition to market economy. Onwards, it provides a description of the regulation of financial accounting and the placement of the accounting profession in Russia, providing insights of the gradual implementation of IFRS into Russian legislation. Finally, the thesis features the auditing profession, which is also undergoing some changes at the moment.

In this paper we studied the effect of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on audit fees in Sweden. Using a classic audit fee model, with data between 2001-2019 for 100 publicly traded Swedish firms we studied the effects of IFRS on audit fees during the implementation period as well as the long-term effects of IFRS adoption. In addition to this we investigated if the adoption of IFRS affected large and small firms differently. In contrast to most previous literature, we found that the implementation of IFRS has not had any short- or long-term effects on audit fees in Sweden. However, we found small indications that changes in audit fees are lower for large firms after the implementation of IFRS but the model’s explanatory factor was low and the effect small so no definitive conclusions could be made. The results remain the same after performing several robustness tests.