Voluntary Accounting Disclosures by US-listed Asian Companies - Does the Strictness of Mandatory Disclosures Matter?

This study examines three issues. First, it investigates the Einhorn (2005) theory on US-listed Asian companies regarding voluntary disclosures. Secondly, this study determines the extent to which voluntary disclosures provided by these companies are convergent, and to determine the effect of culture on those disclosures. Lastly, it examines the voluntary use of International standards by sample companies Results of this study provide perhaps the first empirical evidence on the voluntary disclosures provided by US-listed Asian companies in the US. The evidence shows that companies with stricter mandatory disclosure regime provided significantly fewer voluntary disclosures than the companies with less strict mandatory disclosure regime. In addition, this study documents that over 80 percent of the US-listed Asian companies are voluntarily using International standards and thus contributing towards International accounting convergence. Another important contribution of this study is the development of a measure for strictness of mandatory disclosure regimes of Asian countries by two alternative methods.