This book provides the theoretical background and analyses capital market research related to the IAS/IFRS adoption in Europe, which is one of the most important and controversial events in the history of accounting. It adopts both an investor and a firm perspective and therefore investigates the effects of adopting IAS/IFRS on the decision-usefulness of financial reporting for investors as well as on the firms' cost of capital. The book also focuses on fair value accounting, which is widely controversial.
All these issues are of considerable interest for standard setters and policy makers, whose primary aims are in fact to provide investors with useful information for their decision-making process and to allow firms to have access to a more efficient and cost-effective capital market.

Vera Palea, PhD in Accounting and Finance at Bocconi University, is researcher at the University of Turin, where she teaches financial reporting and analysis both in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
Her research activity focuses on the relationship between financial information and capital market behaviour.

Contents: The decision usefulness approach to financial reporting and capital market research - The converging process in financial reporting - The IAS/IFRS adoption in the European Union - Financial reporting and the firm's cost of capital - Fair value accounting and financial reporting quality.