法律惩戒、审计意见与审计变通行为——来自上市公司的数据

作为中国资本市场中保护投资者利益的一种手段,法律惩戒在注册会计师行业监管中扮演着重要角色。本文通过对我国资本市场上市公司数据的研究表明,随着法律惩戒力度增强,审计意见和审计行为存在明显的变通可能性,注册会计师会更多地出具非标准审计意见类型的审计报告。这意味着,法律惩戒对审计意见类型具有重要影响,是注册会计师做出审计判断时考虑的一个重要因素。     

审计意见类型能反映审计质量吗?

注册会计师对上市公司审计的总目标,是对其会计报表的合法性、公允性、及其会计处理的一贯性发表审计意见,即提供注册会计师服务的最终产品——各种审计意见类型的审计报告。绝大多数对国内股票市场的研究表明,注册会计师的审计报告对投资者来说在一定程度上具有相关性,而且这种相关性随着时间的推移而加强。这说明,注册会计师提供的审计报告越来越具有决策相关性,即投资者在投资决策时越来越多地依赖审计报告所提供的信息。由于审计报告对投资者具有越来越重要的意义,所以审计意见类型成为许多研究者关心的问题。 …     

资本市场虚假审计报告民事责任问题研究

虚假审计报告事件在我国屡屡发生,而在实务中,注册会计师几乎不会因之作出民事赔偿。这种情况严重限制了注册会计师行业的发展。分析我国注册会计师民事责任法律制度的特点及审计民事索赔程序,探讨其所涉及的注册会计师过错认定、审计报告使用者的范围及民事责任的内容、注册会计师应承担的民事责任程度等关键问题。在已有研究的基础上,对推定过错原则的适用性、区分审计报告使用者的类型以分别确定违约责任和侵权责任,以及分别追究被审计单位和注册会计师民事责任等问题进行了研究。     

上市公司内部控制缺陷与审计意见——中国证券市场上第一份否定意见的内控审计案例研究

本文以中国证券市场上第一份否定意见的内控审计报告——新华制药内部控制审计为例,分析了信永中和会计师事务所出具否定意见的内部控制审计报告的原因及其合理性。分析发现内部控制重大缺陷是内控审计否定意见的充分必要条件内控审计意见为非标准审计报告是财务报表审计意见为非标准审计报告的必要条件,否定意见的内控审计意见影响到投资者、公司管理层、审计师等利益相关方的行为等。文章最后提出对我国注册会计师行业发展的启示。     

注册会计师审计质量控制的探讨

注册会计师审计质量控制的好坏直接决定着审计报告的质量,决定着财务报告预期使用者对财务报表使用程度。良好的审计质量控制能够降低审计风险,提高审计质量,促进注册会计师行业健康发展。本文通过阐述注册会计师审计质量控制的内涵,分析注册会计师审计质量控制中存在的突出问题,并以此提出完善质量控制的对策,为建立良好审计质量控制体系提供理论支撑。     

国有企业会计报表审计工作探讨

从近两年对注册会计师审计工作的检查中发现,国有企业年度会计报表的审计工作还存在一些不容忽视的问题。正确认识和解决这些问题,事关行业形象、政府信任和行业的健康发展。 国有企业年度会计报表 审计工作存在的问题1.注册会计师方面的问题(1)审计范围不全。特别是对个别规模较大的公司进行年度会计报表审计时,只审计公司本部,或对公司下属单位进行抽查,而对公司的全部子公司及控股公司不进行审计;只给公司本部出具审计报告,不出具合并审计报告。(2)审计项目不全。在年度会计报表审计时,有些会计师事务所和注册会计师只审计资产负债表、…     

信息不对称条件下提高上市公司审计质量的路径研究

近年来,许多事件和学术研究表明,当前注册会计师对我国上市公司的审计质量并不高,投资者对经注册会计师审计后的财务报表的质量存在广泛的质疑,亦即投资者并不认为审计意见具有信息含量或注册会计师审计会显著消除上市公司的财务舞弊行为。为此,本文借助委托—代理理论和信号传递理论,研究在信息不对称情况下注册会计师审计的质量特征,从理论上分析信息不对称是如何扭曲审计质量的,并在此基础上提出提高注册会计师审计质量的可行途径。     

会计师事务所人力资本特征与审计质量——来自中国资本市场的经验证据

人力资本在会计师事务所中具有十分重要的意义。本文利用2009年我国会计师事务所及其非金融类上市公司客户的数据,以操控性应计额度量审计质量,检验会计师事务所中注册会计师所占比重以及注册会计师的学历、年龄、参加行业领军人才培训情况等人力资本特征对审计质量的影响,结果发现,在我国本土事务所中,注册会计师的年龄以及入选行业领军人才培训计划的人数与正向的操控性应计额之间存在显著的负向关系,这表明,会计师事务所中注册会计师的经验丰富程度和对培训的重视程度对于抑制客户的正向盈余管理行为、提高审计质量具有积极作用。文章没有发现会计师事务所中注册会计师的比重以及注册会计师中高学历者所占比重与审计质量之间存在显著关系的证据。     

注册会计师审计质量控制的博弈分析

注册会计师审计质量优劣直接影响证券市场的有效程度,而审计质量实际状况一定程度上是注册会计师与上市公司管理当局及监管机构、上市公司管理当局与监管机构及股东之间互相博弈的结果。业界对审计质量博弈论研究主要集中于两个局中人的单阶段静态分析。本文构建了四个局中人的多阶段动态博弈模型,对注册会计师审计质量控制的行为选择及其影响因素进行了分析,其结论是:注册会计师审计策略与审计成本和审计风险高度相关,公司管理当局委托注册会计师的行为与审计报告意见紧密联系,独立董事行为影响注册会计师审计质量,管理当局的披露策略与期望收益和风险损失高度相关。     

IAASB审计报告改革的背景、内容及启示

一、IAASB审计报告改革的背景 审计报告是注册会计师在实施审计工作的基础上对被审计单位财务报表发表审计意见的书面文件,是审计工作的最终结果,是向审计服务需求者传达所需信息的重要手段.审计报告以其沟通价值而倍受重视.从历史的角度看,审计报告经历了由非标准格式审计报告向标准格式审计报告的演变过程.     

注册会计师执业环境与审计质量问题研究——供给与需求的视角

本文首先从供给和需求的角度构建了注册会计师执业环境的分析框架,并分别对供给环境与需求环境对审计质量的影响进行了分析,然后结合广东省的问卷调查结果对我国注册会计师执业环境存在的问题——“供给规范不够,需求引导不足”做了系统研究,在此基础上提出了相应的对策。     

CPAs and Big 4 office audit quality

Both accounting firms and regulators recognize the importance of human capital in the audit function, yet we know little about whether and how the level of professionally qualified human capital varies across offices of an audit firm and whether it is associated with audit quality. In this paper, we examine the association between office professionally qualified human capital and audit quality. Using hand-collected data on Big 4 audit firm office CPA levels from 30 U.S. cities, we find that offices with relatively more professionally qualified human capital deliver higher quality audits, with this benefit being more pronounced for audits performed during busy season than for non-busy season audits. The results underscore the importance of the availability of professionally qualified human capital in an audit office to the office’s audit quality. Our finding of CPA levels being an office-level audit quality indicator will potentially help the PCAOB in their ongoing Audit Quality Indicator (AQI) project, whose goal is to assist audit firms, clients, and investors in measuring audit quality. Furthermore, the results lend credibility toward the CPA designation, which helps justify the AICPA’s, NASBA’s, and state Accountancy Boards’ regulatory roles of admitting and licensing qualified candidates.     

Taxing audit markets and reputation: An examination of the U.S. tax shelter controversy

From 2002 to 2007, the nation's largest CPA firms faced allegations of illegal activity related to the sale of tax shelters: EY, KPMG and PwC paid fines; KPMG was investigated by a federal grand jury; and EY faced a criminal inquiry. These shelter events occurred shortly after the 2002 collapse of Arthur Andersen, when policy makers were concerned about audit market concentration. This is the first paper to provide a chronological summary of how the tax shelter controversy started and ended. We investigate the stock market reaction to tax shelter news developments between 2003 and 2005 to make inferences about the market's view of audit competition and CPA firm reputation. Our results are consistent with market concern over large audit firm concentration, evidenced by large negative returns for clients of all audit providers upon the KPMG grand jury investigation announcement. We also find that tax shelter activities impact both the reputation of the accounting profession and the individual CPA firms marketing tax shelter products.     

审计独立性的影响要素及措施分析

在资本市场迅猛发展的今天,审计独立性问题引起越来越多人的关注.审计的独立不仅会影响注册会计师的职业判断及审计质量,还会增加投资者对审计报告的期望度.而审计失败则将会损害审计的内在价值及执行审计任务的会计师事务所的声誉,甚至资本市场的稳定.本文主要从资本市场及公司治理结构分析审计独立性的影响要素,并结合西方国家先进的观点及普遍做法,提出几点提高审计独立性的改进意见     

Class-action privileges and contingent legal fees: Investor and lawyer incentives to litigate and the effect on audit quality

The Cohen Commission recognized the importance of litigation incentives and recommended that research based upon an economic approach be conducted into the effects that litigation incentives can have on the auditing profession. By extending Simon (1981), an economic analysis of an auditing environment is presented wherein audit firms issue reports, representative investors make decisions based upon audit reports, and lawyers (as well as representative investors) play an active role in determining whether or not to initiate litigation against audit firms. The influence that alternative litigation privileges (i.e., class-action privileges with contingent legal fees and no class-action privileges with fixed legal fees) have on representative investor and lawyer incentives to litigate and on the equilibrium characteristics of this audit market are analyzed.     

事务所规模、审计行业专长与事务所审计质量传染效应

发生审计失败事务所的审计质量系统性低于未发生审计失败事务所的审计质量,即会计师事务所的审计质量存在传染效应,但该传染效应受到事务所自选择问题的影响;大规模事务所在审计质量传染效应中占据主导地位;事务所行业专长未能抑制审计质量传染效应。     

Do investors perceive a change in audit quality following the rotation of the engagement partner?

Though Section 203 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) calls for the rotation of the audit partner every five years, we do not know whether investors value audit partner rotation. This is an important issue since many in the auditing profession believe that mandatory rotation of the audit partner is unnecessary and may in fact impair audit quality. We identify a sample of firms that disclosed changes in the engagement partner in the proxy statement and examine whether equity investors perceive a change in audit quality following the partner rotation. We find a significant increase in earnings informativeness following audit partner rotation. We also find that short sellers regard earnings in the post-rotation to be of higher quality than earnings prior to the rotation. Finally, cost of equity capital is lower following partner rotation. Our findings have important implications for the regulators, auditors, and investors.     

时间压力下的注册会计师行为——来自一个全国性事务所的调查证据

审计判断是一个复杂的认知活动,对周围的环境非常敏感。在中国,时间压力作为影响审计绩效的环境因素,其重要性日益上升。目前有关时间压力的有限研究主要是针对外国审计市场背景进行的。通过对我国一个全国性事务所的调查,我们发现,近年来我国注册会计师面临的时间压力越来越大。时间压力阻碍了审计程序的实施,低报审计时间,降低了审计质量。     

'A sort of guide, philosopher and friend': the rise of the professional auditor in Britain

This paper considers the legal and financial context in which professional audit emerged in Britain during the nineteenth century. It concludes that an important contributing factor to the rise of the audit profession was its provision of advice on prudent accounting, which represented a distinctive competence. The capture of a jurisdiction over business advisory services from the legal profession involved, however, a relationship of complicity with management and large insider investors the interests of social capital- to the exclusion of small investors, who were stigmatized as 'speculators'.     

Consequences of adopting an expanded auditor’s report in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has recently required an expanded auditor’s report for large public companies. We investigate whether this requirement is associated with an increase in the decision usefulness of the auditor’s report and whether it has indirect consequences on audit fees and quality. Our analyses cover four years surrounding the changes, including companies that transitioned to the new regime and companies that continued issuing the previous report’s format. We do not find evidence that the regulatory change significantly affected investors’ reaction to the release of auditors’ reports, audit fees, or audit quality. Furthermore, we do not find that variation in the expanded reports’ content has affected these outcomes. Although companies with long reports pay comparatively higher fees, the mere increase in disclosure does not affect audit fees or quality. Collectively, our evidence is consistent with the expanded auditor’s report providing little incremental information to investors.