The Impact of Financial Statement Comparability on Financial Reporting Quality and Cost of Capital: An Empirical Study on Egyptian Firms Listed in the Egyptian Stock Market

The research aims to test the relationship between financial statement comparability and each of financial reporting quality and cost of capital. It also aims to test the mediation effect of financial reporting quality on the relation between financial statement comparability and cost of equity, using a sample of non-financial firms listed in the Egyptian stock market for the period 2017-2020.
          Financial statement comparability was measured using the model of De Franco et el. (2011), as the independent variable. While, cost of capital was measured using cost of equity, as a dependent variable. And financial reporting quality was measured using accruals quality, as an intermediate variable. The researcher used the path analysis, which is one of the structure equation modeling techniques, to test the research hypotheses.
          The results indicated that there is a significant negative relationship between financial statement comparability and cost of capital. Also, there is a significant positive relationship between financial statement comparability and financial reporting quality. In addition, there is a significant negative relationship between financial reporting quality and cost of capital. Moreover, the results found that financial reporting quality mediates the relation between financial statement comparability and cost of capital, using accruals quality as an intermediate variable. Finally, the results of the additional test supported these results, through using cost of debt in measuring cost of capital