Effect of Mandatory IFRS Adoption on Accounting-based Prediction Models for CDS Spreads

This study examines the effects of mandatory IFRS adoption on accounting-based prediction models for CDS spreads for a sample of 357 firms in 16 IFRS-adopting countries. We do this by estimating accounting-based prediction models for CDS spreads separately for financial and non-financial firms before and after mandatory IFRS adoption. We find that mean and median absolute percentage prediction errors are larger for both financial and non-financial firms after mandatory IFRS adoption. We also estimate accounting-based prediction models for CDS spread separately for financial and non-financial US firms before and after mandatory IFRS adoption to obtain prediction errors serve that as a benchmark. Although US firms also exhibit an increase in mean and median absolute percentage prediction errors over the same period, findings from regressions using a difference-in-difference design indicate that the increase is significantly greater for firms in countries that adopted IFRS mandatorily. We also find that in the post-adoption period, prediction errors are larger for firms in countries with low levels of and decreases in legal and regulatory quality.