产权性质、不良贷款率与审计费用——来自上市商业银行的经验证据

本文运用2003—2008年我国A股上市商业银行的数据,采用偏最小二乘法和广义最小二乘法,实证分析了我国银行产权性质、不良贷款率与审计费用之间的关系。研究发现:国有控股银行的审计费用更高,且流动性比例对审计费用的影响更大;不良贷款率高的银行审计费用也较高。不同产权性质的银行中,各类风险对审计费用的影响存在着一定的差异,如国家控股银行的流动性比例对审计费用的影响更为明显。所以,审计机构需根据产权性质对各类风险指标给予不同程度的关注。     

非审计服务影响注册会计师独立性吗?——来自中国证券市场的经验数据

长期以来,非审计服务对审计独立性的影响问题备受各界争议,且目前国内尚无人从实证研究角度进行验证。本文以2001—2004年报中同时披露审计与非审计费用的A股上市公司为研究对象,以操控性应计利润作为审计独立性的替代变量,在国内首次验证了非审计服务对审计独立性的影响。检验结果表明：非审计费用及其与总费用比重的大小对操控性应计利润没有明显影响。也就是说,在我国,没有证据显示,非审计服务的提供会影响注册会计师的审计独立性。     

管理层干预、审计委员会独立性与盈余管理

已有研究发现,审计委员会独立性通常能够有效监控财务报告流程,而那些在形式上独立的审计委员会可能在实质上并不独立,公司管理层对董事会的干预可能对审计委员会监控作用产生重要影响。本文通过盈余管理来检验管理层干预是否会削弱审计委员会的监控效力。研究发现,当公司管理层没有涉入董事任命时,审计委员会独立性能够发挥较好的监控作用,但是,一旦公司管理层涉入董事任命,审计委员会独立性的监控作用将被削弱。     

创建第三方审计费用支付平台——消除审计费用支付对审计独立性的影响

审计独立性是注册会计师执行审计业务的灵魂。本文针对目前我国审计费用支付方式存在的问题进行分析,阐述其对审计独立性的影响,并提出创建"第三方审计费用支付平台",改变当前审计费用支付方式,切断被审计单位与会计师事务所存在的直接经济利益关系,增强注册会计师的审计独立性,提高审计业务质量。     

审计费用信息隐藏与审计质量——基于审计独立性和投资者感知视角的研究

根据证监会的规定,上市公司应当在年度报告中披露支付给会计师事务所的报酬。然而,我国每年仍有一定数量的公司没有按照规定披露审计费用。为此,本文从审计独立性和投资者感知审计质量两个视角分析审计收费信息隐藏情境下的审计质量。研究发现:(1)如果上市公司不披露审计费用信息,那么会弱化可控应计与非标审计意见之间的正向关系,这意味着不披露审计费用可能会有损审计独立性;(2)不披露审计费用的公司所披露的超预期盈余的盈余反应系数较低,即投资者对这类公司的感知审计质量较低。     

管理者短视影响审计收费吗？——来自上市公司的经验证据

在可持续发展战略导向下,管理者短视在对企业决策产生不利影响的同时,如何影响审计费用值得关注。研究发现,管理者短视程度越高,审计费用越高,经营风险、控制风险以及盈余管理在管理者短视对审计费用的影响中发挥了中介作用。进一步研究发现,董事长与总经理间权力距离较大时,管理者短视对审计费用的影响更显著,而较高的监督型机构投资者持股比例可以抑制管理者短视与审计费用间的正向关系。拓展分析发现,管理者短视程度越高,审计报告中关键审计事项披露数量越多,且高声誉会计师事务所出具非标审计意见的概率越高。研究将管理者短视产生的影响拓展至审计领域,对企业高管聘任和事务所优化风险评估程序均有启示意义。     

审计费用的特征及其分析——来自沪市上市公司的经验证据

研究结果发现,会计师事务所的规模以及上市公司的行业分布、股权性质、盈利情况等因素,对审计费用具有显的影响。同时,在研究过程中我们发现,目前存在比较严重的审计费用拖欠情况,相关监管部门应该重视这一问题并予以解决。     

盈余管理对审计费用影响分析--来自中国上市公司首次审计费用披露的证据

审计收费作为客户与注册会计师之间重要的经济联系,是审计研究的重要对象;而在资本市场与会计市场的发展过程中,盈余管理问题也引起了广泛而高度的重视。那么,上市公司的盈余管理问题是否会影响到注册会计师的收费呢?自2001年开始,上市公司需要在年报中披露支付给会计师事务所的报酬情况,本文选取了2001年报按照证监会要求披露审计费用的282家公司作为研究样本,发现公司盈余管理的表现之一,即公司的净资产收益率(ROE)处于“保牌”区间,是年度财务审计费用的显著影响因素;此外,公司规模、是否由国际5大(4大)所审计显著正向影响年度财务审计费用。     

盈余管理、事务所客户资源控制权的归属与审计质量——来自中国证券市场的经验证据

与西方市场仅能观察到事务所变更不同的是,中国资本市场还同时提供了审计师变更的佐证。基于此,本文应用新制度经济学中的资产专有理论,从审计师和事务所两个角度,分析了中国证券市场特有的审计师/事务所变更行为,并结合盈余管理和审计意见进一步分析这种行为的原因和后果。文章通过对比签字审计师离开事务所并带走客户的公司与签字审计师离开事务所没有带走客户的公司后,发现在审计师跳槽之前,公司的盈余管理越强,越会跟随审计师到新的事务所,表明客户资源的控制权归审计师而非事务所所有。并且,我们还发现,这类公司在审计师变更前的审计质量更差。本文的研究丰富了审计理论的研究手段和现有成果,并对于规范审计师行为和提高审计独立性具有积极的理论价值和现实意义。     

Is investment decision-making influenced by perceptions relating to auditors’ client dependence and amount of audit fees?

The objectives of this study are to examine whether investing decisions are affected by knowledge about the auditor's revenue dependence on a client and whether the amount spent by a company on audit fees affects decisions to invest in the company. A behavioral experiment is conducted where risk assessments and investing decisions are made for four hypothetical investing scenarios. The study finds that investing decisions are affected by knowledge about an auditor's revenue dependence on a client, but are not affected by knowledge about the size of a client's audit fees.     

Disclosure of fees paid to auditors and the market valuation of earnings surprises

We investigate if the SEC’s recently mandated disclosure of fees for audit and nonaudit services paid by firms to their incumbent auditors affected the market’s perception of auditor independence and earnings quality. Following the initial fee disclosures in 2001, we find that the market valuation of quarterly earnings surprises (earnings response coefficient) was significantly lower for firms with high levels of nonaudit fees than for firms with low levels of such fees. In contrast, in the year prior to the new fee disclosures, there was no reduction in earnings response coefficients for firms that subsequently reported high nonaudit fees. Our evidence suggests that mandated fee disclosures provided new information that was viewed by the market as relevant to appraising auditor independence and earnings quality.

Audit report information content and the provision of non-audit services: Evidence from Spanish lending decisions

This study examines whether auditor economic independence affects the information content of going concern audit reports in the European setting. We conduct an experiment where 80 experienced Spanish loan officers from the second largest European commercial bank review a loan request under two lending scenarios: (1) a potential borrower receiving an unqualified but modified going concern opinion, and (2) a potential borrower receiving a qualified going concern opinion. Auditor economic independence, measured by the provision of non-audit services (NAS), is manipulated (absence vs. presence of significant NAS). We find that a qualified going concern audit report is interpreted as a primary warning signal (death penalty). However, the provision of NAS acts as a second order mechanism that only activates loan officers’ professional skepticism in the case of an unqualified but modified going concern report scenario. Therefore, we find evidence suggesting that the potential negative impact of a perceived lack of auditor independence depends on the nature of the audit report. Our findings have important implications for the European regulator, which is currently considering establishing an auditor independence regulation framework similar to that in the United States of America.     

Managerial Incentives for Income Smoothing Through Bank Loan Loss Provisions

We examine alternative underlying motives of bank managers in using loan loss provisions (LLP) to smooth reported income. Based on the analytical results of Fudenberg and Tirole (1995), we predict that for banks with good (poor) current performance and expected poor (good) future performance, managers will save income for (borrow income from) the future by reducing (increasing) current income through LLP. We also analyze three additional variables that could explain cross-sectional differences in the level of income smoothing. Our empirical analysis provides support for our predictions. The difference in LLP between the two groups of banks is positive as hypothesized, indicating that bank managers do save earnings through LLP in good times and borrow earnings using LLP in bad times. Similar results are obtained for analysis using discretionary LLP. When bank managers are saving earnings for the future, we provide evidence that the need to obtain external financing is an important additional variable in explaining cross-sectional differences in the extent of income smoothing. Furthermore, whether or not a bank is well capitalized is also weakly significant in explaining cross-sectional differences in income smoothing.     

贷款损失准备计提与商业银行经营风险相关性研究 ——基于经理自主权视角

贷款损失准备的计提作为商业银行调节会计利润的手段,是否对商业银行经营风险有影响,是一个值得探讨的问题。基于我国上市商业银行2007-2017年的数据为研究样本进行实证分析,研究结果表明：贷款损失准备对商业银行经营风险有正向信号传递作用。其中,基于经理自主权计提的自由裁量部分能缓释经营风险,非自由裁量部分对经营风险产生加速放大效应,从而证明了自由裁量贷款损失准备能增强银行风险承担能力,为商业银行经理人员和监管者合理规范计提准备金提供新思路。     

The joint determination of audit fees, non-audit fees, and abnormal accruals

Prior research has estimated piece-meal the determinants of audit fees, non-audit fees and abnormal accruals. Intuition, informal analysis, and a variety of theories suggest that audit fees, non-audit fees, and abnormal accruals are jointly determined. We address this endogeneity issue by modeling the confluence of audit fees, fees for non-audit services and abnormal accruals in a system of simultaneous equations. Our joint estimation provides a starting point to look simultaneously at several competing theories. Using audit and non-audit fee data from the UK for 1994–2000, we find evidence consistent with knowledge spillovers (or economies of scope) from auditing to non-audit services and from non-audit services to auditing. While knowledge spillovers from non-audit services to auditing have been found in prior research [e.g. see Simunic, 1984], the presence of knowledge spillovers from auditing to non-audit services is a new result. Contrary to recent results in Ferguson et al. (2000) and Frankel et al. (2002), we do not find support for the assertion that fees for non-audit services increase abnormal accruals. In fact, contrary to the results in Ashbaugh et al. (2003) and Chung and Kallapur (2003), we find that non-audit fees decrease abnormal accruals, which we attribute to the productive effects of non-audit services. We also find evidence that audit fees increase abnormal accruals, consistent with behavioral theories of unconscious influence or bias in the auditor-client relation. The findings are robust to tests with US data. JEL Classification C30 · M40 · M41 · M49     

Bank Managers' Heterogeneous Decisions on Discretionary Loan Loss Provisions

This study examines bank managers' three major motivations for discretionary behavior with respect to loan loss provisions: signaling, income smoothing, and capital management. To do so, it utilizes a bank-specific time-series regression approach that captures heterogeneity in the banks' priorities and strategies for alternative motives and compares the results to those from alternative model specifications. The statistical tests and results presented in this study lead to three conclusions. First, significant results for the income smoothing hypothesis are robust to the various model specifications. Second, average signaling coefficients estimated from bank-specific regressions are systematically larger than corresponding coefficients from pooled time-series cross-sectional regressions and are statistically significant. Finally, bank managers appear to use loan loss provisions to manage their regulatory capital levels by comparing them with the minimum ratios specified by regulators rather than with a time-series bank-specific ratio or pooled time-series cross-sectional mean ratio.