The Effect of Comparability of Financial Statements and the Opacity in Financial Reporting on the Value Relevance of Earnings and Book Value per Share

The relevance and usefulness of accounting information can be measured by the simultaneous relationship between accounting information, returns or stock market prices. The Comparability of accounting information, as a qualitative feature of information, increases the value relevance of accounting information. Also opacity in financial reporting through the corporate financial system increases stock volatility and, as a result, increases investment risk and investor distrust. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is the effect of comparability of financial statements and opacity in financial reporting on the value relevance between earnings and book value per share. Accordingly, a sample of 137 companies was selected from the companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2013 to 2019 and to test the hypotheses, a multivariate regression model using the panel data method was used. The results showed that earnings and book value per share have a value relevance and the comparability of financial statements increases the value relevance of earnings per share. But contrary to the literature, comparability reduces the value relevance of book value per share. On the other hand, the opacity of financial reporting reduces the value relevance of book value per share due to comparability of financial statements, but does not affect the value relevance of earnings per share due to comparability.