QUALITY AND DETERMINANTS OF RISK REPORTING - EVIDENCE FROM GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

While risk reporting disclosures have been required in Germany since 1999, equal requirements have become mandatory in Austria and all member states of the European Union only since 2005. The analysis conducted includes the risk reporting disclosures of all non-financial companies listed in the German prime stock market (DAX-30) and Austrian prime stock market (ATX). The purpose of this study is to investigate information quality of risk reporting disclosures within the annual reports of Austrian and German listed companies by using a scoring model. As most industries (except finance industry) have been affected by the financial crisis in the second half of 2008, also the risk reporting could be affected by the financial crisis. To identify the impact of the financial crisis on risk reporting the study analysis the risk reporting disclosures of the financial years 2007 and 2008. Based on these data, also a multiple regression model was used to identify specific determinants on information quality of risk reporting disclosures. The findings indicate that information quality of risk reporting increases over time and index and quantity of risk information disclosures are a determinant for the information quality of risk reporting.