European Regulation n. 1606/2002 (from now on, IAS Regulation), as legally enforcing the compliance with IAS/IFRS, has significantly changed the accounting system of all European listed companies, and not only. The aim of IAS Regulation is specified as follows (Article 1): “This Regulation has as its objective the adoption and use of international accounting standards in the Community with a view to harmonising the financial information presented by the companies … in order to ensure a high degree of transparency and comparability of financial statements and hence an efficient functioning of the Community capital market and of the Internal Market”. In other words, the mandatory adoption of IAS/IFRSs was expected to result in a better transparency and comparability in European financial reporting, so to allow the internal capital market to operate more efficiently and create a more and more level playing field for investors (ICAEW, 2015). At the same time, this requirement should have generated an inevitable increase of compliance costs with a new set of accounting standards (Brown and Clinch, 1998; Walton, 1992). Within this context, the aim of this paper is to arrange a cost/benefit analysis of IAS/IFRS implementation in Italy. An on-line questionnaire survey was conducted in order to identify the perceptions of all Italian listed companies regarding the benefits and the costs associated with the practice of IAS/IFRS 10 years after their mandatory adoption. […]
Key-Words: Bilancio e principi contabili
