Accounting Diversity and the Value Relevance of Accounting Earnings and Book Value in Four Countries-the United States, The United Kingdom, Canada and Japan (Manuscripts‪)‬

ABSTRACT Diversities in accounting standards across different countries are of serious concern to the international investment community. Analysts, investors and security regulators have indicated that accounting differences can affect the usefulness of accounting numbers in assessing firm values (Choi and Mueller 1992). This paper investigates the impact of accounting diversity on the relative value relevance of accounting summary numbers in four countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan. Accounting systems of these four countries are of interest because of the varying degree of perceived conservatism in accounting measurement practices across these four accounting systems and the size of the capital markets in these four countries.