International Financial Reporting Standards and Bilateral Accounting Services Exports

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on bilateral trade of accounting services. Applying the gravity model to a sample of 13 exporting and 33 importing countries for five years (2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, and 2017), we find that accounting services exports are unaffected by whether both trade partners have jointly adopted IFRS. As a secondary analysis, accounting services exports are found to decrease when trade partners are more dissimilar in their per capita income, with weak evidence that this effect may be muted if both countries adopt IFRS.