Abstract

This study tries to answer whether value based measures are superior to traditional accounting measures in explaining stock returns. A pooling panel data method on 115 Iranian listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) from 2001 to 2008 is used to investigate the explanatory power of four value-based measures (including Economic Value Added, Refined Economic Value Added, Market Value Added and Shareholder Value Added) compare to five accounting-based measures (including Earning Per Share, Return On Equity, Return On Assets, Cash Flow from Operations and Return On Sales) in explaining stock returns. Our findings do not provide evidence which support assertions that value-based measures are superior compared with other traditional accounting measures. Relative information content tests revealed that stock returns are more closely associated with ROA and ROE than other performance measures. Furthermore, incremental information content tests suggest that value-based measures add only marginally information content beyond accounting measures. However, the results indicate that accounting measures generally dominate value-based measures.

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