Is comprehensive income required by IAS 1 relevant for users? A review of the literature

Professional accountants have accepted for decades net income a the key performance measure of a business. The IASB decision in 2007 to require the publication of comprehensive income as it has been the case since 1997 in the United States, has fed the long time debate regarding the concept of income. In this paper, we will go through some background about both approaches of income and their consequences in terms of financial reporting. We will then review the related literature, classified according to the relationship between the concepts of income on one hand and of relevance and consistency on the other hand. Finally, we will show that empirical research does not allow so far to demonstrate the relevance for users of the concept of comprehensive incomeperformance ; income ; comprehensive income ; relevance of financial information ; consistency.