IFRS 17 adoption decision impacts financial statements: a natural experiment in a development country scenario

• Ano de defesa: 2025
• Autor(a) principal: Lima, Letícia Garrido Ribas
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Accounting choice; Accounting standards; Earnings management; Escolha contábil; Gerenciamento de resultados; IFRS 17; Insurance sector; Normas contábeis; Setor de seguros
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/12/12136/tde-22082025-134025/

IFRS 17 was issued in 2017 and had mandatory adoption starting 1 January 2023. The adoption in Brazil had a peculiarity: the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) authorized companies to issue their quarterly financial statements according to IFRS 4, the accounting standard that was applied before IFRS 17, if the companies reissued their quarterly financial statements, according to IFRS 17, together with 2023 financial statements. Due to this peculiarity, some public companies chose to continue to issue their quarterly financial statements according to IFRS 4, while others decided to issue them according to IFRS 17. Therefore, it is worth trying to understand the implications of this new standard adoption, especially in a developing country scenario, particularly in the insurance sector. This study considers possibilities on how companies choose between standards and the consequences, the literature on accounting choice, and earnings management, discussing whether companies are choosing based on which standard makes their financial statements look better. As for the methods, this study uses natural experiment techniques combined with clustering analysis and distribution tests. The study concludes that there is no evidence that earnings management was a driver in choosing between disclosing 2023 quarterly financial statements according to IFRS 17 or IFRS 4. However, there is evidence that late adopters had smaller earnings according to IFRS 17 than according to IFRS 4 in the second and third quarters of 2023, which may indicate that they chose the standard that made their financial statements look better.