Technical provisions represent one of the most important item of liabilities in accounting of an insurance company. Technical provisions reperesent liabilities for clients of the insurance companies. The exact amount of these provisions is not known in advance. The main reason for generating technical provisions by insurance companies is to fulfill the liabilites arising from insurance and reinsurance contracts in the future. The first chapter of this thesis deals with the principle of the provisions in accounting in general. The next chapters deals with the provisions generated according to IFRS and the czech law. The most extensive chapter describes the technical provisions from the perspective of the czech law for insurance companies. The examples of the technical provisions are the integral part of the thesis.

The thesis provides actual changes in the lease accounting according to the IFRS. Boards IASB and FASB are trying to remove the differences in a lease reporting and also they want to integrate it. This integration will lead to reporting of comparable information about the financial state of the company. This information represents a necessary field for users of financial statements. The aim of these two boards is to publish a particular lease standard for lease reporting, which would replace currently applicable standards and therefore simplify the orientation within financial statements. The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is focused on the convergence process from its beginning. The aim of the second chapter is to show the lease reporting according to the currently applicable standards -- IFRS and US GAAP. The third chapter describes the lease definitions according to the Exposure draft. The fourth and the fifth chapter are dedicated to reporting of lease from the lessee's point of view and lessor's point of view, as well. The last chapter shows positive/negative comments of five chosen organizations on the Exposure draft.

The content of the diploma thesis are incentives in trade relationships from the view of accounting and taxes. The thesis is focused mainly on incentives in lease relationships, bonuses, rebates, discounts and customer loyalty programs. The thesis discusses different possibilities of accounting solutions from the view of provider and recipient. It is also deals with the tax solution. The comparison of accounting solution according to Czech regulation and International financial reporting standards IFRS is part of this thesis.

This thesis deals with the characteristics of leasing, lease development and history over time, accounting for leases, lease showing in the tax system as well as international financial reporting standards. The aim of this thesis is to define the concept of leasing and its species. Clarifying the issue of lease accounting in terms of tenant and landlord.

This thesis aims to summarise the theoretical principles, concepts and considerations pertaining to accounting for and reporting of derivatives and to describe and analyse the development of major accounting standards dealing with related issues. Sections 1 and 2 provide a basic overview of derivative instruments'categorisation, mechanics, valuation and uses. Section 3 studies the principles that ensure the provision of useful financial information, with specific focus on financial instruments. Sections 4, 5 and 6 trace the development of US and international accounting standards pertaining to derivatives and financial instruments in general. The focus of the thesis lies with their measurement, recognition and disclosure.

Since 2005, all companies quoted at European stock exchange are obligated to report their financial statements under IFRS. As the Czech companies primarily issue their financial statements under Czech acounting standards, the bookeeping under both accounting system raise the necessity of knowledge of mutual differences. The object of this work is to bring the attention to the accounting area of tangible and intangible assets from the point of view of both systems.

Diploma thesis deals with the comparison of financial statements in accordance with Czech accounting regulations and International Financial Reporting Standards. The theoretical section is divided into several chapters devoted to IFRS, conceptual framework, convergence project and Czech legislation. The main part of the theoretical section is divided according to individual financial statements, where particular related requirements are put into a comparison. Practical section of the thesis concerns financial statements of the Czech Post prepared in accordance with Czech legislation and financial statements of the Slovak Post, which is committed to disclose under IFRS. Conclusion summarizes the main differences which have been identified.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued International Financial Reporting Standard No. 8 (IFRS 8) “Operating Segments” in November 2006 as a part of its convergence programme with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB); the new standard became effective for periods beginning on or after 1/January/2009 (IASB, 2006a). IFRS 8 supersedes the previous international accounting standard (IAS): IAS 14 Revised (IAS 14R) “Segment Reporting” (IASC, 1997). IFRS 8 requires segments to be identified in accordance with the management approach. In particular, operating segments are to be identified on the basis of internal reports that are “regularly reviewed by the Chief Operating Decision Maker (CODM) to make decisions about resources to be allocated to the segment and assess its performance” (IASB, 2006a, para 5). There are two main objectives to this study: (i) to assess the impact of IFRS 8 on the segmental disclosures of Jordanian listed firms in their annual reports for 2009 when the standard became effective; and (ii) to explore the perceptions of external auditors, preparers and users (investors and analysts) of financial statements about this new segmental reporting standard. A decision usefulness theoretical framework underpins the research; the research was carried out by using a disclosure index analysis and semi-structured interviews. The two objectives of this thesis were investigated by employing these two methods; a disclosure index and semi-structured interviews. The research is located in Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) functionalist paradigm using a decision usefulness theory lens. The findings suggest that IFRS 8 has had a significant and sizeable impact on the segmental disclosure practices of Jordanian companies in 2009 compared to disclosure practices in annual reports for 2008 based on IAS 14R; a sample of reports for 109 first market Jordanian listed companies were investigated. The disclosure index findings indicate that the Jordanian listed companies provided more disaggregated segmental information, published data on additional segmental items and supplied new Entity-Wide Disclosures (EWDs) in accordance with IFRS 8’s management approach. For example, 10% of the sample companies provided segmental information for the first time in 2009. The Jordanian listed companies provided details about more disaggregated business segments (where the mean number of segments rose from 2.4 to 2.7) and geographic segments / EWDs (where xii the mean number of segments increased from 1.5 to 1.8). The average disclosure index score rose from 18.6% in 2008 to 30.6% in 2009. In addition, 27% of the sample companies went beyond the requirements of IFRS 8 by identifying the CODM in their annual reports for 2009. With regards to the semi-structured interviews, 31 participants agreed to provide their views on IFRS 8. The respondents indicated that the quantity and quality of segmental information provided under IFRS 8 in annual reports for 2009 was “better” than that disclosed in 2008; it was more understandable, relevant, reliable and comparable than the segmental information which had previously been reported. Their responses also indicated that the implementation of IFRS 8 did not appear to cause any difficulties for external auditors, preparers and users during 2009; most interviewees reported that IFRS 8 was not a problematic standard. They believed that the disclosure of segmental information increased, published segmental information became more organised and better explained and the segmental information disclosed was more transparent. The current study is the first of its kind in Jordan, and adds to the growing literature on financial disclosure; it therefore fills a gap about segmental disclosure in developing countries. It is also exploratory in nature, since very little is known about segmental reporting practices in Jordan. Thus, this study’s findings represent a significant contribution to knowledge.

Nesta pesquisa, composta por três ensaios, buscamos resultados que contribuam com informações sobre três temas relevantes na área de finanças: o impacto de normas internacionais na qualidade da informação contábil; quantidades e estrutura de dependência entre commodities alimentares e o petróleo; e o estudo da relação entre o retorno e a volatilidade implícita de um fundo do mercado do petróleo. Em particular, trabalhamos para sugerir novas estratégias, com formas alternativas para a solução de problemas relacionados a esses temas. No primeiro ensaio, adotamos uma estratégia empírica, em duas etapas, para avaliar o impacto das normas internacionais de contabilidade (IFRS) na qualidade da informação contábil. Na primeira, construímos grupos de controle, por meio de um pareamento por escore de propensão, com a intenção de selecionar um contrafactual para avaliar o impacto das IFRS no Brasil. A busca e o uso de contrafactuais para a avaliação de normas contábeis ainda não foi explorado de forma adequada nos estudos específicos para o país. Na segunda etapa, estimamos modelos de painel para medidas de qualidade da informação. Os resultados apontaram para o efeito positivo da adoção de normas sobre a qualidade da informação contábil para as empresas avaliadas. No ensaio número dois, calculamos medidas de dependência entre as principais commodities alimentares e o petróleo, e testamos a existência de neutralidade entre esses mercados. Além disso, investigamos mudanças na estrutura de dependência ao passar de um período de estabilidade para um de crises. Para tanto, adotamos um procedimento que envolveu a estimação de valores para as marginais com modelos ARMA-GARCH, estimação de cópulas não paramétricas, via kernel, e cálculos aproximados de medidas de dependência. Também construímos intervalos de confi-ança para essas medidas de dependência utilizando técnicas de block bootstrap. De posse dos resultados dos intervalos refutarmos, de maneira geral, a hipótese de neutralidade entre esses mercados. Outro ponto a se destacar foi a mudança da estrutura de dependência observada ao passar de um período de estabilidade para um período de crises. Finalmente, no terceiro ensaio, realizamos a avaliação da relação entre o retorno e a volatilidade de um fundo representativo do mercado de petróleo e seu respectivo índice de volatilidade esperada. Neste ensaio, em particular, nos dedicamos na análise da não linearidade e assimetria entre os diferentes quantis de volatilidade. Com base nos resultados de regressões quantílicas e na análise não paramétrica do método B-splines, encontramos resultados que apontam para respostas de retornos negativos mais intensos do que positivos, em especial nos extremos da distribuição. E ainda, que existe uma relação no formato de "S" inclinado entre as variáveis, em forma de “U” para retornos ne-gativos e “U” invertido para retornos positivos, nos quantis (0.05, 0.90 e 0.95) de volatilidade. / In this research, composed of three essays, we seek results that contribute to information on three relevant topics in the finance: the impact of international standards on the accounting information quality; Quantities and structure of dependence between grain commodities and oil; and the study of the relationship between return-volatility of an oil investment fund. In particular, we work to suggest new strategies, with alternative ways to solve problems related to these themes. In the first essay, we adopted a two-stage empirical strategy to assess the impact of international accounting standards (IFRS) on the accounting information quality. In the first stage, we constructed control groups, through a pairing by propensity score macthing, with the intention of selecting a counterfactual to evaluate the impact of IFRS in Brazil. The search and use of counterfactuals for the evaluation of accounting standards has not yet been adequately explored in the specific s tudies f or B razil. In the second s tep, we e stimate panel models for the main measures of information quality. The results pointed to the positive effect of adopting standards on the quality of accounting information for the companies evaluated. In essay number two, we calculated measures of dependence between the main grain commodities and oil, and we tested the existence of neutrality between these markets. In addition, we investigate changes in the dependency structure when moving from a period of stability to one of crisis. For that, we adopted a procedure that involved the estimation of values for the marginal ones with ARMA-GARCH models, estimation of non-parametric copulas, via kernel, and approximate calculations of dependence measures. We also constructed confidence intervals for these dependency measures using blockbootstrap techniques. With the results of the intervals, we refute the hypothesis of neutrality between these markets, in general. Another point to highlight was the change in the structure of dependence observed when changing from one period of stability to another of crises. Finally, in the third essay, we evaluated the relationship between the return and the volatility of a fund representative of the oil market and its expected volatility index. In this essay, in particular, we focus on the analysis of nonlinearity and asymmetry between the different quantile of volatility. Based on the results of quantile regressions and the non-parametric analysis of the B-splines method, we find results that point to responses of negative returns that are more intense than positive, especially at the extremes of the distribution. Also, there is an "S"-shaped relationship between the variables, in the form of "U"-shaped for negative returns and "U"-shaped inverted for positive returns, for the quantis (0.05, 0.90 and 0.95) of volatility.

The objective of this study is to add to the body of research concerning International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). To accomplish this objective, it will examine whether Canada’s adoption of IFRS, which replaced Canadian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), appears to affect the reported financial performance of Canadian public mining companies. Financial information for 2010 from the audited financial statements, as stated under IFRS and Canadian GAAP, were used to compute selected financial ratios. These financial ratios were tested to determine if statistically significant differences in their dispersion and central tendency resulted from adopting IFRS. It was found that no statistically significant differences existed in the dispersion of the ratios. However, statistically significant differences were found in the central tendency of three of the ratios: quick ratio, return on assets, and comprehensive return on assets. The results of this study will provide valuable information for investors, Canadian public mining companies, and government policy makers in other countries around the world.