Effect of Employee Expenses on Usefulness of Accounting Information

Abstract

In this study, the employee expenses model and earnings model are compared in order to determine whether or not putting the employee expenses in the earning predictability models and high relevance of accounting information to stock value, increases usefulness of accounting information. We use the term ‘earnings model’ to refer to the consideration of earnings alone, for determining earnings predictability as well as value relevance. The term ‘employee model’ refers to the consideration of earnings and employee expenses in determining earnings predictability as well as value relevance. In this study, the cost of employees’ salary, which is shown under the heading of General and administrative expenses in the income statement, is the only monetary information that is available for us and relevance value is determined through the effectiveness of the models in determining stock returns. After applying these limitation, companies which were active in Tehran Stock Exchange from2003 to 2012 were chosen as the target population. The results showed that compared to earnings model, the employee expenses model provides a better prediction of the earnings but it isn’t a better model for predicting the stock relevance (related to the return of the stock).