Financial Transparency, Labor Productivity, and Real Wages: Evidence from Mandatory IFRS Adoption

Abstract

Financial transparency can affect labor markets directly by mitigating information asymmetries and optimizing the matching of heterogeneous firms and employees (matching efficiency channel) and indirectly through the effect of transparency on firms’ capital inputs (capital utilization channel). Exploiting the increase in financial transparency following the mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption by European Union countries, we perform a battery of tests that indicate subsequent increases in labor productivity and real wages for manufacturing industries in member countries. More importantly, we find evidence that both channels are economically relevant in explaining gains in labor productivity and real wages following the mandatory IFRS adoption. Collectively, our results underscore that the benefits of an increase in transparency go beyond the effects on capital markets and corporate investments, with implications for the allocation of human resources across corporations.