Identifiering och redovisning av immateriella tillgångar vid rörelseförvärv ?En kvantitativ studie om redovisningstransparens och kapitalmarknadens informationsasymmetri
The association between disclosure level and asymmetric information is a matter of importance andconsiderable interest to the financial reporting community. The theory in this area suggests that acommitment by a firm to increased levels of disclosure should lower the information asymmetry thuslowering the cost of equity. This theory may be compelling, but so far the empirical results have beenambiguous. Due to increased globalization the demand for high quality accounting standards has risen. In2005 The International Accounting Standard Board launched the standard named IFRS 3. The launch ofIFRS 3 means that the companies listed on the Swedish stock market are now obligated to a largerextent, than before to account for obtained intangible assets instead of reporting them as goodwill when acompany acquisition is carried out. This paper aims to empirically examine whether there is a correlationbetween an increased reporting of intangible assets and the asymmetric information in the stock market.The companies listed on the Small, Mid and Large Cap stock lists on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm exchangeare examined during the years 2005-2007. The statistical models used in the study are a Kruskal-Wallistest and a multiple linear regression. The initial finding in this study from the Kruskall-Wallis testindicates that there is a relation between the reported intangibles and the information asymmetry. Butdue to the fact that the proxy for information asymmetry can be explained by other variables than the oneused in this study. A second statistical test was conducted with a multiple linear regression. The resultfrom this test revealed no correlation between increased reporting of intangible assets and the asymmetricinformation in the stock market. The finding in this study does not show the same results as the majorityof previous research. That is that increased level of disclosure, in this case reporting of intangibles, doesnot correlate with the information asymmetry in the stock market.