The Effect of IFRS on Conservatism and Value Relevance of the Chaebol

We investigate the effect of IFRS on the relationship between the chaebol and conservatism, and the effect of this relationship on the value relevance of the chaebol. We find that the adoption of IFRS does not influence the conditional conservatism in non-chaebol firms, but it weakens the conditional conservatism in chaebol firms relatively. We also find that the unconditional conservatism of chaebol firms is greater than that of non-chaebol firms both before and after IFRS adoption. Finally, we document that the influence of the chaebol’s earnings on the value relevance decreases significantly, but the influence of the chaebol’s book value on VR does not change significantly after IFRS adoption. Consequently, the influence of the chaebol’s earnings on the value relevance decreases as the conditional conservatism of the chaebol declines after IFRS adoption, while the influence of the chaebol’s book value on the value relevance does not change as high levels of the unconditional conservatism in chaebol firms persists both before and after IFRS adoption.