International financial reporting standards, domestic debt finance and institutional quality: Evidence from developing countries

Abstract

We have examined the relationship between international financial reporting standards (IFRS and IFRS for SMEs) and domestic credit to the private sector by banks. Using data on 107 developing countries from 2000 to 2017, we found that the use of IFRS and IFRS for SMEs is positively associated with an increase in domestic credit to the private sector in developing countries. Our analysis on the individual global standards shows that the relationship is much stronger for the use of full IFRS than IFRS for SMEs. We found that the effect of both international standards on domestic credit is more profound in countries with weaker institutional quality, indicating the overwhelming support that these sets of international standards are quality standards that boost confidence in financial statements. Other robustness tests confirm our results.