The impact of corporate governance on auditor choice: Evidence from China

As the largest and fastest growing emerging market, China is becoming more and more important to investors throughout the world. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of firms’ auditor choice in China in respect of their corporate governance mechanism. Normally firms have to take a trade-off in their auditor choice decisions, i.e., to hire high-quality auditors to signal effective audit monitoring and good corporate governance to lower their capital raising costs, or to select low-quality auditors with less effective audit monitoring in order to reap private benefits derived from weak corporate governance and less-transparent disclosure (the opaqueness gains). We develop a logit regression model to test the impact of firms’ internal corporate governance mechanism on auditor choice decisions made by IPO firms getting listed during a bear market period of 2001–2004 in China. Three variables are used to proxy for firms’ internal corporate governance mechanism, i.e., the ownership concentration, the size of the supervisory board (SB), and the duality of CEO and chairman of board of directors (BoDs). We classify all auditors in China into large auditors (Top 10) and others (non-Top 10), assuming the large auditors can provide higher quality audit services. The empirical results show that firms with larger controlling shareholders, with smaller size of SB, or in which CEO and BoDs chairman are the same person, are less likely to hire a Top 10 (high-quality) auditor. This suggests that when benefits from lowering capital raising costs are trivial, firms with weaker internal corporate governance mechanism are inclined to choose a low-quality auditor so as to capture and sustain their opaqueness gains. On the other hand, with improvement of corporate governance, firms should be more likely to appoint high-quality auditors.     

产权性质、制度环境与内部控制

内部控制是近年来国内外监管部门、实务界和学术界关注的热点与前沿问题。本文研究我国上市公司最终控制人的产权性质与地区制度环境对公司内部控制质量的影响。利用厦门大学内控课题组(2010)构建的2007-2009年我国上市公司内部控制指数,本文主要发现:首先,相比于中央政府控制的公司,地方政府控制的公司内部控制质量相对较差,而非政府控制的公司内部控制质量与中央政府控制的公司之间则没有明显差异;其次,上市公司所在地区的市场化程度越高或政府对经济的干预程度越低,公司的内部控制质量越高,尤其是对于地方政府控制和非政府控制的上市公司,并且,良好的外部制度环境有助于缩小地方政府控制和非政府控制公司的内部控制与中央政府控制公司之间的差距。本文的研究结果对相关主管部门及监管机构具有一定的政策启示意义。     

Government ownership,audit firm size and audit pricing: Evidence from China

The present study provides empirical evidence on the impact of government ownership on audit pricing behaviour based on data from Chinese listed companies between 2001 and 2008. Our findings, having controlled for auditor choice, indicate that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) incur significantly lower audit fees than non-SOEs. The results also reveal a significant interaction between the type of SOE (i.e., owned by central vs. local government) and audit firm size, which also affects audit fees. More specifically, large auditors tend to charge the central-SOEs lower audit fees than local-SOEs (province, city and county), while small auditors charge central-SOEs higher fees than local-SOEs. We explore a political economy rationale from a supply-side perspective in explaining the results.     

供应商-客户关系与审计师选择

采用2002-2009年中国制造业上市公司数据,本文检验了供应商集中度和客户集中度对公司审计师聘用决策的影响。研究结果显示,对于非国有公司来说,供应商集中度或客户集中度越高,公司聘用大所进行审计的概率越低。对于国有公司来说,随着供应商集中度或客户集中度的上升,公司聘用大所进行审计的概率先逐渐下降,但随后又逐渐上升,呈现出U型关系;但是,这种U型关系只在国有股比例较高的公司中存在。本文的研究结果表明,公司会通过聘用高质量的审计师向供应商或客户发送信号,换言之,审计信号理论对于投资者之外的利益相关者也是适用的。     

Industry specialist auditors, outsider directors, and financial analysts

This study investigates the relationships among industry specialist auditors, outside directors, and financial analysts. Specifically, we examine the effect of analyst coverage on the association between auditor industry specialization and outside directorship. We find that outside directors are less likely to hire industry specialist auditors for firms with high analyst coverage than for firms with low analyst coverage. Our findings suggest that analyst coverage moderates outside directors’ demand for industry specialist auditors, that is, financial analysts may compete with industry specialist auditors to some extent in monitoring financial reporting process.     

How do political connections cause SOEs and non‐SOEs to make different M&A decisions/performance? Evidence from China

This study examines the impact that political connections have on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) performance and the decisions of Chinese listed firms. We find that political connections destroy (create) value in SOEs (non‐SOEs). Our findings show that connected SOEs are more likely to acquire local targets, especially when the local unemployment rate is high and when the firms are controlled by the local government, and they are less likely to conduct vertical mergers. M&A decisions of connected non‐SOEs are less influenced by the government; instead, political connections in non‐SOEs help bidders to integrate vertically and obtain external financing support.     

Top management turnover,firm performance and government control: Evidence from China's listed state-owned enterprises

Using a sample of 916 Chinese listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from 2001 to 2005, we find that the likelihood of top management turnover is negatively associated with firm performance, suggesting the existence of an effective corporate governance mechanism in an emerging economy that is highly controlled by government. We also find that the negative turnover–performance relationship is stronger when the SOE is directly held by the central or local government, holding a monopolistic position in a local economy or in a strategic/regulated industry. The results indicate that the market-based corporate governance mechanism that disciplines top executives as a result of poor performance is not only used in Chinese SOEs, but is used more frequently when the governance control of SOEs is more intense. Our findings support the notion that government control strengthens rather than weakens the turnover–performance governance mechanism. Our additional analysis shows that this complementary effect is stronger in regions that lack pro-market institutions, such as investor protections and a functioning capital market.     

Auditor quality,audit fees,organizational structure,and risk taking in the US life insurance industry

Using a system of simultaneous equations, this study examines the relation among external audit monitoring, in the US life insurance industry. We find insurers with higher leverage risk and surplus risk are more likely to use Big‐4 auditors and to pay higher fees. In return, insurers hiring Big‐4 auditors and paying higher audit fees have lower leverage risk and surplus risk. Second, the results suggest that mutual life insurers have a higher leverage risk and surplus risk than stock life insurers. This evidence is in contrast to that for property–liability insurance companies. Third, we find insurers are less likely to hire Big‐4 auditors and to pay higher audit fees after implementation of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX). Finally, life insurers with Big‐4 auditors or paying higher audit fees are more likely to take lower risks after the implementation of SOX.     

Price informativeness and state-owned enterprises: Considering their heterogeneity

State owned enterprises (SOEs) play a pivotal role in the world economy. However, how state ownership affects price informativeness is less-explored, much less the impacts of differing forms of state ownership. We find that the price synchronicity of SOEs is about 9.0% to 15.4% larger than that of non-SOEs, indicating that SOEs have less informative stock prices. Institutional environment and government regulations such as anti-corruption campaigns are important mediating factors in reducing price synchronicity, but the price synchronicity of SOEs is still significantly larger than that of non-SOEs. Differences in state ownership matters for price synchronicity. SOEs associated with local governments (SOELGs), as well as those represented by state assets management bureaus (SAMBs), have larger price synchronicity than non-SOEs. Although SOEs controlled by central governments (SOECGs) also have larger price synchronicity than non-SOEs based on univariate tests, this difference becomes statistically insignificant when controlling for other factors. SOEs are less likely to be publicly exposed for fraud, implying that state ownership provides a buffer for SOEs. Overall, we evidence that state ownership has an important role in deprecating stock-price informativeness, with the impact differing depending on whether SOEs are controlled by central or non-central governments.     

Does Internal Corporate Governance Complement or Substitute for External Auditing? Evidence from China's Anti‐corruption Campaign

Two competing hypotheses have been developed for the relationship between internal corporate governance and external auditing. One proposes a complementary relationship, while the other suggests it is substitutable. This study takes advantage of China's recent anti‐corruption campaign as a quasi‐natural experiment to explore this relationship. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach, we find that, after the campaign, internal corporate governance improved more in SOEs (state‐owned enterprises) than in non‐SOEs. SOEs were less likely to choose Big 10 auditors after the campaign, while audit firms assigned less experienced auditors to their SOE client firms and charged lower audit fees. These effects were more pronounced in SOEs that exhibited greater improvement in corporate governance. Overall, we find the anti‐corruption campaign improved corporate governance in SOEs but, at the same time, reduced external audit quality, which supports the substitution view. We argue that this result might be driven by the fact that SOEs have limited demand for high‐quality accounting information because the Chinese government maintains strong control over the capital markets.