Impairment Test and Quality of Accounting Information in Brazilian Publicly Traded Companies 

Abstract: We aim to investigate whether the evidence regarding the impairment test indicates an increase or reduction in the quality of accounting information of Brazilian listed companies and whether there was a persistence of earnings from 2010 to 2015. Initially, our sample comprised 464 companies from the ten Brazilian Stock Exchange sectors comprising six periods/years, from 2010 to 2015. Of these, 53 companies recorded impairment losses. The results confirmed hypotheses 1, 3, and 4 of the research that showed evidence of using the impairment test opportunistically and not using the test when possibly they should have done so. Finally, the results showed that the persistence of the profit of the 53 companies is lower with the recognition of impairment losses.

Key words: impairment test; quality of information; IFRS standard; Brazilian companies

         JEL codes: M41, C12, M49