The Convergence of IFRS and U.S. GAAP: Evidence from the SEC's Removal of Form 20‐F Reconciliations

Abstract We use the SEC 's 2007 decision that eliminates the reconciliation requirement for foreign listed private issuers ( FPI s) reporting under IFRS as a natural experiment to examine whether IFRS and U.S. GAAP produce accounting information of comparable quality. We conduct statistical analyses using a sample of 563 firm‐year observations of FPI s during the period 2002 through 2008 for a panel of 70 FPI s that report under IFRS as our …