The international accounting literature identifies a multitude of country attributes that individually explain levels and changes in reporting quality, the impact of IFRS adoption, and related economic outcomes. This paper highlights the very high casual density of these country attributes which makes it very difficult to isolate the reporting effects of individual institutions and policies. We specifically document the very high correlation among 72 previously-identified country attributes and that 4 underlying factors explain these attributes. We then show that the 4 factors subsume individual country attributes in explaining international reporting diversity. For financial reporting change events (such as IFRS adoption), we show that the 4 factors also subsume individual country attributes and change variables in explaining both the likelihood and outcomes of these events. We conclude with suggestions for future directions for international accounting research.

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International accounting