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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of product market competition on dividend payout and share repurchases in Australia in which a full dividend imputation system has been in place since 1987.

Panel data estimation with industry and year-fixed effects is employed to examine the role of industry competition on dividend payout and share repurchases. The paper uses a sample of ASX200 non-financial firms, including 4,272 observations over the period 1992–2015. To address the endogeneity problem, the authors utilize the event of Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which became effective on 01 January 2005, and perform a difference-in-difference analysis.

The authors find that firms operating in competitive markets are likely to pay more dividends and repurchase more shares to reduce agency costs. The positive relation between industry competition and dividends is stronger among firms where the CEO and the Chairman of the Board are the same person and among firms with higher market-to-book ratio and higher standard deviation of stock returns. The study results are robust when the authors account for the impact of franking credit on dividend payment. In the difference-in-difference analysis, the authors find strong evidence of a casual relation that product competition drives changes in dividend policy.

The findings are consistent with the notion that intense product market competition can mitigate agency conflicts between managers and shareholders and with the information signalling explanation of market competition. As such, regulators may want to introduce policies that encourage more market competition (e.g. market deregulation) to enhance market efficiency.

This study incorporates product market competition in explaining the firm payout policy.

Provides a useful summary of research on value added (VA) reporting and shows how income statements can be rearranged to show gross or not (of depreciation) VA. Starts with descriptive research on its use in various countries, enumerates its advantages and limitations and goes on to review empirical research on VA firm performance, the informational content of VA (as against conventional) data in market valuation and its predictive ability. Suggests that VA disclosure should be mandatory in the USA and calls for further research on its usefulness.

This study investigates the usefulness of net value added in explaining stock returns of a sample of US firms. The results provide evidence that current and past levels of net value added or current and past levels of changes in net value added are associated with stock returns. A case may be made for the disclosure of value added information by US firms.

Outlines the valuation models of Ohlson (1995) and Feltham and Ohlson (1995), which relate share prices to accounting data, and develops a version which substitutes net value added for earnings. Tests it on 1978‐1995 US data and shows that it is better than the conventional model at explaining price. Recommends that future capital market research should consider net value added as an alternative to earnings for wealth measurement.

This study examines the value relevance of earnings and Book values derived under the Kuwaiti accounting system that assures a complete compliance with the International Accounting Standards. Using a valuation model provided by Ohlson (1995), the study uses statistical association between stock prices and both earnings and book values to measure value‐relevance of the accounting system. The study also compares the incremental explanatory power of earnings and book values and examines some conditions under which earnings or book values would explain a relatively higher proportion of the variation of stock prices. The results show that earnings and book values jointly and individually are positively and significantly related to stock prices. The incremental information content of earnings is greater than that of book values. Earnings become less value‐relevant and book values more so as firms experience negative earnings. The best fit for the model was obtained for the industrial and food sectors followed by service and financial institutions. Earnings add more to the overall explanatory of the valuation model than book values for financial institutions, services, investments and real estate sectors; whereas book values have superiority only for the industrial sector. The results of our study are generally consistent with the results obtained from U.S. and other developed markets except for the fact that the incremental information content of earnings is greater than that of book values.

The Chinese capital markets are divided into two segments comprising of A-shares (traded by domestic investors) and B-shares (traded by foreign investors). Firms issuing A-shares are required to produce accounting reports under the Chinese Accounting Standards (CAS) and firms issuing B-shares are required to report under the International Accounting Standards (IAS). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the comparative value-relevance of accounting information in the Chinese capital markets, in particular whether the value-relevance associated IAS exceeds that of CAS.

This study undertakes a capital market research approach. Two statistical models are employed to test the value-relevance of competing accounting information on share prices: the Price Model and the Return Model. This study takes advantage of the parallel reporting frameworks governing the A-share and B-share markets buy using the same firms which issue both A-shares and B-shares.

The analysis supporting the study demonstrates that both CAS and IAS information is value relevant to investors in the Chinese capital markets but that IAS provide more useful information. Additionally it is observed that reconciliation variables (representing the discrepancy between IAS- and CAS-based accounting figures) are not significant in explaining market valuation or returns on stock.

This study provides evidence of value-relevance of accounting reports on the Chinese capital markets for the period of 1999-2005. The period under investigation captures the significant development in China's accounting regulations which took place in 1998 and 2001. The recent shift in accounting regulations in China from CAS to IAS is expected to improve the dissemination of financial information by publicly listed Chinese firms.

This study investigates the reporting requirements on the Chinese capital markets during a period in which accounting reporting requirements underwent a significant change as part of the internationalization of accounting standards. Both A- and B-share markets were investigated simultaneously in order to provide an objective analysis and avoid sampling selection bias present in other studies.

The recent shift in accounting regulations in China from CAS to IAS is expected to improve the dissemination of financial information by publicly listed Chinese firms.

This paper extends previous research on value-relevance of accounting reports in the Chinese capital markets by capturing the period in which the reporting requirements had experienced significant change. This paper also takes advantage of the dual reporting framework in order to mitigate potential sampling bias present in previous studies and employs a reconciliation variables not previously used.