Abstract:

The value relevance of accounting information addresses the degree to which accounting information summarizes the information that is impounded in share prices. Without making any distinction of the applicable accounting standards, the purpose of this paper is to investigate on the value relevance of accounting variables, earnings and book value, given by an emerging market context, firms listed in Tunisian Stock Exchange (TSE). The findings of this study indicate that book value has more value relevance than earnings per share in. The results also show that combined value relevance of book value has declined when firms have negative earnings. The important contribution of the study is documenting the deteriorated value relevance of negative earnings and the increased value relevance of book value in the variation of share prices. This may be just limited to the period of 2010-2015 in TSE, or this could be the true pattern in which earnings play less significant role in share price.