The impact of global economic policy uncertainty on accounting conservatism: A research on companies listed in the BIST 100 index

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of global economic policy uncertainty on the level of accounting conservatism of companies listed in the Borsa Istanbul-100 index. Regression developed by Basu (1997) was used to determine the conservatism levels of businesses, and within the scope of the research, the data of 73 companies, whose data were fully accessible for the years 2017-2022 were analyzed with the panel data method. The analysis revealed that the conservatism levels of the examined companies were low during the specified years. However, findings indicated that both global economic policy uncertainty indexes determined by current values and parity increased the level of conservatism in these companies. The results can be interpreted that in times of uncertainty, companies tend to act in the interest of protecting stakeholders’ interests, and managerial behavior tends to avoid opportunistic actions. Furthermore, the increase in conservatism levels due to uncertainty can also help reduce information asymmetry among stakeholders. Businesses may not have many options in situations of uncertainty. However, precautions taken in advance can enable businesses to navigate uncertain environments with minimal damage. Accounting conservatism can provide businesses with this opportunity.