How has the international harmonization of financial reporting standards affected merger premiums within the European Union?

We investigate the impact of IFRS adoption on merger premiums. Using a comprehensive database of M&A deals within the EU during 2000-2011 we examine the role of overall IFRS adoption, the differences between voluntary and mandatory adopters and the role of the target country's pre-IFRS accounting infrastructure and framework (absence of IFRS and IAS). We find that the introduction of the mandate is generally associated with lower merger premiums paid to targets. This decline is more pronounced in deals where the targets are mandatory adopters. We also find that the further away the target's country standards are from IFRS, the stronger the effect of IFRS adoption is on merger premiums. The results are robust to an exhaustive number of control variables and alternative model specifications, as well as across different subsamples. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.