本地审计师的合谋效应

本文结合公司的信息不对称程度,从审计收费与审计质量的角度来研究本地审计师的合谋效应问题。研究结果表明,异常审计收费降低了本地审计师对信息不对称程度高的盈余管理公司出具非标审计意见的概率,而并不会降低本地审计师对信息不对称程度低的盈余管理公司出具非标审计意见的概率,同时,异常审计收费也不影响外地审计师出具非标审计意见的概率,表明本地审计师与信息不对称程度高的盈余管理公司之间存在合谋行为;进一步研究表明,信息不对称程度高的盈余管理公司更可能选择本地审计师进行审计,从而为本地审计师的合谋效应提供了进一步的证据。     

“存贷双高”异象的审计监督——基于审计意见的实证检验

近年来，以康美药业、康得新等为代表的“存贷双高”企业股债双雷现象频发，引起了资本市场的极大震动，如何从信息中介的视角识别“存贷双高”异象的风险显得尤为重要。研究发现，具有“存贷双高”特征的企业更容易被审计师出具非标审计意见，表明审计师能够有效发挥审计监督作用；其内在机制是审计师识别到“存贷双高”企业信息透明度低、真实盈余管理水平高，从而提高了出具非标审计意见的概率；从调节效应看，提高审计师行业专长和公司治理水平有助于缓释“存贷双高”异象的审计风险；进一步分析表明，审计师能准确识别“存贷双高”程度、区分“存贷双高”类型等，并选择出具非标审计意见来降低自身风险。研究对于理解审计师在降低“存贷双高”风险方面的信息中介作用、丰富审计意见相关研究具有重要的理论意义，同时也为提前防范市场风险提供了经验启示。     

盈余管理会影响审计意见——基于两类盈余管理的经验研究

研究发现,会计选择盈余管理和真实活动盈余管理都是影响审计师出具审计意见的重要因素。盈余管理程度越大,被出具非标准审计意见的概率越高,随着公司两种方式盈余管理程度的增大,出具更差类型审计意见的概率越高。     

股权质押、盈余管理与审计师风险应对

基于2007—2018年我国A股1109家上市公司的数据,研究大股东股权质押、真实盈余管理与审计师风险应对之间的关系,探究真实盈余管理程度是否增强了大股东股权质押与审计师风险应对的正向关系。研究发现:大股东股权质押正向影响了审计费用和审计意见;真实盈余管理程度加剧了大股东股权质押后的负面效果,进而加强了大股东股权质押与审计费用间的正向关系,但对审计意见的影响不显著;进一步的研究发现:上期的审计费用反向助长了当期的股权质押率;存在大股东股权质押的上市公司,审计师出具非标准审计意见的概率会随审计费用的提高而加大。该结论扩展了审计师风险应对的研究范围及影响大股东股权质押的其他因素,对提高审计师风险应对及完善大股东股权质押政策具有一定的参考价值。     

盈余管理、盈余管理属性与审计意见——基于中国证券市场的经验证据

过去的文献一直把盈余管理看成同质风险,而本文把盈余管理按属性划分为决策有用性盈余管理和机会主义盈余管理,采用1999年至2008年A股上市公司作为研究样本,研究了审计师能否对不同属性的盈余管理做出差别反应,并表现在审计意见决策上。研究结果发现,在同样进行了盈余管理的样本中,审计师能够区分不同属性的盈余管理,对高风险的机会主义盈余管理应计额出具非标意见的概率大于低风险的决策有用性盈余管理的应计额。     

政府控制对审计质量的双重影响

本文从上市公司和会计事务所的产权性质与区域属性的角度,研究了政府控制对审计质量的影响。研究发现,国有企业和本地会计事务所审计的公司的盈余管理水平较低;而较低的盈余管理水平能够降低审计师出具非标意见的概率;同时,国有企业在控制了盈余管理水平的情况下,其得到非标意见的概率相对要低。研究结果表明,政府控制对审计质量的影响具有双重性:一方面,政府控制增强了会计事务所的"本土知识"优势和抵御公司压力的能力,进而提高了公司报表质量;另一方面,政府控制依据它对审计市场的控制降低了出具非标意见的概率,损害了审计质量。     

碳风险对非标审计意见的影响及作用机制——基于《巴黎协定》的经验证据

本文以《巴黎协定》签署为准自然实验，构建双重差分模型实证检验碳风险对非标审计意见的影响和作用机制。研究发现，企业面临的碳风险越高，审计师出具非标审计意见的可能性越低。机制检验表明，在环境规制下，企业在碳风险压力下主动开展绿色技术创新，并提升了ESG表现，审计师则降低出具非标审计意见的可能性。进一步研究发现，不同审计师行业专长程度对企业碳风险的环境审计结果的调节作用存在差异。在区分企业规模、内部控制质量时，碳风险对审计师出具非标审计意见的影响也表现出异质性。本文将碳风险与非标审计意见纳入统一的研究框架，为发挥环境审计作用约束碳排放行为提供了新视角，也对于深入推进减污降碳、实现双碳目标具有政策启示。     

财务报表重述公司审计质量研究

以财务报表重述公司为研究对象,考察财务报表重述公司年报审计质量。结果表明:财务报表重述的幅度对非标审计意见的出具有显著的影响力;初始差错年和报表重述年,注册会计师都能在一定程度上识别上市公司的盈余管理动机,并在审计意见中有所反映;审计师任期和对财务报表重述公司出具非标审计意见之间没有显著的相关性;事务所规模和非标审计意见的相关性并不显著,结论没有支持大事务所更有可能对重述公司出具非标审计意见。     

环境不确定性与审计意见:基于股权结构的考察

本文从公司股权结构的角度,研究企业环境不确定性与审计意见之间的关系。发现环境不确定性所带来的风险,促使审计师出具更多的非标审计意见以降低可能的损失赔偿;由于政府的支持,环境不确定性对国有企业的影响较小,审计师因而对国有企业环境不确定性出具非标审计意见的概率相对要低;进一步的研究发现,审计师对环境不确定性增加了收费,然而,国有控股公司因环境不确定性而增加的审计收费幅度相对较低。     

会计事务所组织形式、法律责任与审计质量——基于签字审计师个体层面的研究

本文从签字审计师个体层面研究了会计事务所组织形式对审计质量的影响。与有限责任制相比,特殊普通合伙制将审计法律责任与风险落实到了签字审计师个人,增加了审计师的违规成本,因此审计师可能会变得更加独立和谨慎。研究表明,同一签字审计师同年在特殊普通合伙制身份下比在有限责任制身份下更容易出具非标审计意见,其审计公司的盈余管理水平更低,审计质量更高。同时,我们还发现,事务所从有限责任制转变为特殊普通合伙制以后,相同签字审计师转制后出具非标审计意见的可能性更高,而且被审计公司的盈余管理水平更低,审计质量也明显提高。这些结果为我们判断2010年以来我国推动事务所转制为特殊普通合伙制的政策提供了直接的经验证据,表明特殊普通合伙制对审计师的审计行为产生了预期的政策治理效果,有助于事务所做强。     

How do auditors view managers’ voluntary disclosure strategy? The effect of earnings guidance on audit fees

The objective of this study is to examine the relation between attributes of earnings forecasts issued by managers and audit fees. Although there is an extensive literature on managers’ disclosure of earnings forecasts, there is a paucity of research on how auditors incorporate information from these voluntary disclosures. We find that the issuance of an annual or quarterly management earnings forecast in the prior period is positively associated with the current period audit fees. Our results indicate that on average, audit fees are higher by about 7% for firm-years associated with an annual forecast. Among the firms that issue earnings forecasts, we find no association between audit fees and likelihood of updating a previously issued earnings forecast, indicating that auditors do not view such behavior negatively. Further, we find audit fees to be positively associated with the error and the bias (or optimism) in the forecasts for annual forecasts but not for quarterly forecasts. Overall, these results suggest that management’s forecast behavior captures higher business risk for the auditor via greater risk of earnings management or litigation risk.     

Audit opinion improvement and the timing of disclosure

Companies have been found to report positive information more quickly than they report negative information (i.e., good news early, bad news late). This paper investigates the potential impact of audit opinion change on the timeliness of financial disclosures, with improvements in audit opinion considered to be “good news.” We take both the direction and the magnitude of audit opinion change into consideration, with magnitude measuring how far the opinion is from an unqualified opinion (i.e., an unqualified opinion with explanatory paragraph is closer to an unqualified opinion than a qualified opinion is). We find that firms experiencing an improvement in their audit opinions disclose their financial results earlier, while those with audit opinion deteriorations report their financial results later, and that these effects were related to the magnitude of the opinion change. What's more, there is an asymmetric response to good audit opinion news vs. bad audit opinion news, with bad audit opinion news having a larger effect on earnings timeliness than the effect on earnings timeliness of good audit opinion news. Overall, our results support the “good news early, bad news late” notion. Finally, we also find that overall earnings timeliness has improved in China since the enactment of new reporting regulations in 2006.     

Investor perceptions of an auditor’s adverse internal control opinion

In response to recent corporate scandals, Congress passed the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) which, among other things, requires that the auditor render an opinion as to the effectiveness of a company’s system of internal controls. The assumption implicit in this requirement is that the new internal control opinion provides investors with value-relevant information. Our evidence suggests that an adverse audit opinion on internal control over financial reporting provides incremental value-relevant information to investors beyond that contained in the financial statement audit opinion alone. Specifically we find that an adverse audit opinion on internal controls over financial reporting relative to an unqualified opinion is significantly associated with investors assessing a higher risk of financial statement misstatement, higher risk of a future financial statement restatement, higher information asymmetry, lower financial statement transparency, higher risk premium, higher cost of capital, lower sustainability of earnings, and lower earnings predictability. Overall, our empirical results support our hypotheses that the auditor’s opinion on the internal controls over financial reporting provides financial statement users with value-relevant information.     

Earnings volatility and audit report lag

This study investigates whether earnings volatility influences audit report lag. If auditors view earnings volatility as affecting risk, and adjust effort in response to risk, we expect earnings volatility to impact audit report lag. Using a sample of 13,075 firm-year observations over the period 2004–2015, we find a negative relation between earnings volatility and audit report lag, consistent with auditors responding to less volatile earnings with increased effort. We also find that the association between earnings volatility and audit report lag is driven by non-industry-specialist auditors, auditors with short tenure, and small and medium sized auditor offices. Furthermore, we examine whether earnings management conducted by way of earnings smoothing affects our results. We find that low earnings volatility has a stronger impact on increasing audit report lag when there is a high degree of earnings smoothing     

Overlapping membership between risk management committee and audit committee and bank risk-taking: Evidence from China

Although overlapping membership between risk management committee and audit committee is prevalent in banks' boards, the existing literature focuses on the impact of a single board committee on bank risk-taking. Using a sample of Chinese listed banks from 2007 to 2020, we examine whether and how overlapping membership between risk management committee and audit committee influences bank risk-taking. The results show that overlapping membership between risk management committee and audit committee reduces bank risk-taking. Furthermore, the risk-averse role of overlapping membership between risk management committee and audit committee is stronger in banks with weaker monitoring intensity and higher information acquisition costs. When exploring the potential channels of monitoring and information, we find that overlapping membership between risk management committee and audit committee helps reduce executive earnings management and make conservative interbank liability decisions. Finally, compared with other overlapping member characteristics, the role of overlapping risk management committee chair and financial experts in reducing bank risk-taking is more evident.     

Auditor reporting and earnings management: some additional evidence

This paper investigates the reasons that lead to modification of auditors’ opinions. We revisit the conclusions of prior US‐based research on whether a modification highlights likely earnings management activities. Extending this research, we consider an alternate explanation that managers adjust accruals to report earnings that better predict future firm performance, which has the side‐effect of placing them in conflict with their auditors. Our study sample comprises all firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange over the period 1999–2003. Consistent with prior research, there is no evidence of earnings management leading to an audit opinion modification. However, we do show that firms receiving inherent uncertainty modifications (other than going concern) have greater persistence of earnings (accruals) relative to other firms. This is consistent with the proposition that managers have made policy choices in reporting current earnings, with which their auditors disagree, that will likely result in a greater ability to forecast the firm's future earnings.     

Audit opinion and earnings management: Evidence from Greece

This study examines the relationship between audit opinions and earnings management, as measured by discretionary accruals, for listed firms on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). We divide the qualified audit opinions into two categories: qualified for the going-concern uncertainty and qualified for other reasons. The results indicate that audit opinions are not related to earnings management. Client financial characteristics, such as profitability and size are determinants of the going-concern audit opinion decision. The decision of auditors to issue qualified opinions for other reasons is explained by the type of audit opinion issued in the previous year.