审计师行业专长与审计市场研究评述

本文对国外审计师行业专长与审计市场关系的研究文献进行了回顾和总结,内容涉及审计师行业专长的衡量、审计师行业专长与审计师行为、审计师行业专长与审计收费、审计师行业专长与审计质量等四个方面。在此基础上,进一步考察了国内审计师行业专长发展和研究的现状,并结合两个审计失败的案例指出发展和研究国内审计师行业专长的重要意义。     

会计师事务所行业专长与审计质量相关性的检验——来自中国上市公司审计市场的经验证据

行业专长是审计师专业技能的重要构成要素之一。国外大量的研究均证实会计师事务所的行业专长能够提高审计质量,而本文的研究却发现,在中国上市公司审计市场中,就总体而言,会计师事务所行业专长与审计质量负相关。进一步的分析则表明,目前我国会计师事务所总体上独立性相对不高、易受行业内经济依赖度的负面影响和行业专长发展程度较低是造成这种负相关性的主要原因。     

行业专长视角下的非审计服务与审计质量关系研究

本文以2007年至2010年沪深上市公司为研究对象,基于审计行业专长的视角分析非审计服务与审计质量之间的关系.结果表明,审计行业专长对提供非审计服务的水平与审计质量之间的关系具有调节效应,当审计师为客户提供非审计服务时,相对于非行业专长事务所而言,行业专长事务所更可能提供高质量的审计服务.进一步分析发现,行业专长事务所对于客户的正、负向盈余管理行为均有一定的抑制作用.     

审计市场结构与审计质量:来自中国证券市场的经验证据

本文以我国证券市场2004年~2005年的上市公司为研究样本,使用调整后的KS模型估计出的公司操纵性应计利润的绝对值作为审计质量的衡量指标,考察了审计市场结构和审计质量的关系。研究发现在控制了影响审计质量的相关变量之后,市场结构与审计质量存在以下关系:审计市场集中度与审计质量成正相关关系;市场的进入退出壁垒越高,审计质量越高;但审计师的行业专长不但没有提高审计质量,反而在一定程度上降低了审计质量;审计市场的强地域性与审计质量也没有明显的相关关系。     

多客户审计、审计公司组织形式与审计失败

本文通过建立审计质量的二次函数模型,分析了不同组织形式的审计公司在同时审计多个客户时,其审计报告的外部性对审计失败的影响。研究结果表明:1)在有限合伙制和赔偿机制完善的前提下,随着客户数量的增多,审计公司的审计质量上升,发生审计失败的概率下降;2)赔偿额越高,审计公司的审计质量也越高,其审计失败的概率降低;3)有限合伙制是一种较好的组织形式;4)审计师的诚信度越高,审计公司审计失败的概率越低;5)审计市场集中度越高,整个审计市场的失败概率越低。由此,本文认为建立有限合伙制、实施赔偿机制、提高审计师的诚信度和审计市场的集中度是提高审计质量和降低审计失败的有效途径。     

会计师事务所行业专长与审计市场

对于不同质量审计服务的需要形成了事务所的行业专长,而在事务所的相互竞争中,行业专长又使得现代审计市场结构逐渐明朗化.本文将整个审计市场分为高质量审计服务市场和低质量服务审计市场,分析了事务所行业专长的形成,以及行业专长如何促成现代审计市场结构明朗化的原因.     

会计师事务所行业专长与审计市场

对于不同质量审计服务的需要形成了事务所的行业专长，而在事务所的相互竞争中，行业专长又使得现代审计市场结构逐渐明朗化。本文将整个审计市场分为高质量审计服务市场和低质量服务审计市场，分析了事务所行业专长的形成，以及行业专长如何促成现代审计市场结构明朗化的原因。     

线上销售与审计调整

线上销售是企业实现转型升级的重要手段。本文以我国消费行业上市公司为样本，研究线上销售对审计调整的影响。研究结果表明，企业线上销售程度越高，审计师审计调整的幅度越小；审计调整程度的降低主要为向下审计调整程度的下降，而向上审计调整程度没有明显变化。同时，审计师对线上销售程度较高的客户公司也降低了审计收费。进一步研究发现，线上销售比例较高的客户公司，其审计前盈余质量和审计后盈余质量都显著更高；Wind线上销售数据的披露放大了线上销售对于审计调整的降低效应。此外，线上销售降低审计调整的效应主要体现在具有丰富经验或具有职业怀疑特征的审计师所审计项目之中，以及内部治理较好的客户公司之中。本文的结论有助于利益相关者理解线上销售对资本市场信息环境以及审计师行为的影响。     

审计师质量、产权性质与资本结构研究

近年来,我国资本市场出现的一系列审计失败问题,引起了广大投资者、政府监管部门以及相关研究人员对审计质量的高度关注。审计质量反映了企业资信情况的透明度,其高低影响到审计对投资者保护的有效程度,进而影响到社会公众投资者的信心、资本市场发展的健全程度以及公司资本结构状况。本文旨在通过研究审计师质量、产权性质与公司资本结构决策的衡量因素与相互关系,对相关领域的发展和实务提供一些参考建议。     

投资者保护、审计师行业专长与审计收费

以2009-2011年沪深上市A股公司为样本,实证检验了投资者保护程度、审计师行业专长对审计收费的影响。实证研究表明,审计师行业专长可以提高审计收费,带来溢价收入;投资者保护程度越高,审计收费也越高;随着投资者保护程度的增强,审计师行业专长能产生更大的审计收费溢价。     

Does Auditor Industry Specialization Improve Audit Quality?

This study examines whether auditor industry specialization, measured using the auditor's within‐industry market share, improves audit quality and results in a fee premium. After matching clients of specialist and nonspecialist auditors on a number of dimensions, as well as only on industry and size, there is no evidence of differences in commonly used audit‐quality proxies between these two groups of auditors. Moreover, there is no consistent evidence of a specialist fee premium. The matched sample results are confirmed by including client fixed effects in the main models, examining a sample of clients that switched auditors, and using an alternative proxy that aims to capture the auditor's industry knowledge. The combined evidence in this study suggests that the auditor's within‐industry market share is not a reliable indicator of audit quality. Nevertheless, these findings do not imply that industry knowledge is not important for auditors, but that the methodology used in extant archival studies to examine this issue does not fully parse out the effects of auditor industry specialization from client characteristics.     

中国本土会计师事务所的市场地位与经济回报

区域规模化和行业专长化是会计师事务所通常采取的两种发展战略。本文分析和比较了具有区域市场领先地位以及具有行业市场领先地位的中国本土会计师事务所伴随的经济回报(以审计定价度量)。基于全样本的证据显示:本土会计师事务所仅仅通过在各省际市场取得领先地位并不足以获取明显的经济回报;具备行业市场领先地位则伴随着显著更高的经济回报;同时具备行业市场领先地位和区域市场领先地位则伴随着更大的经济回报。进一步的分析显示,不同本土会计师事务所可能需要考虑在发展战略及其实现途径上的差异化。本文的发现对本土会计师事务所制定符合自身特征的发展战略具有启示意义。     

Audit pricing and auditor industry specialization in an emerging market: Evidence from China

In this paper we examine the determinants of audit fees by focusing on auditor industry specialization and second tier auditors in the Chinese market. We find evidence of Big 4 premiums for brand name as well as industry specialization in both the statutory and supplementary market. Big 4 industry specialists earn additional premiums in the statutory market as compared to non-industry specialists. We also find that market expansion did not provide the second tier auditors any price advantage. These auditors increased their market share mainly in the mid- and small-sized clienteles. Moreover, industry experience developed by the second tier firms may have helped them gain economy of scale and reduce service fees. This may be their strategy to win future clients that seek low-priced audits.     

The Effect of Client Industry Agglomerations on Auditor Industry Specialization

Prior research on auditor industry specialization documents fee premiums for local audit offices that are industry specialists. This research assumes that the effects of specialization are uniform across markets. We examine industry specialization based on the economic theory of industry agglomeration (geographic areas with high industry concentration). Agglomeration economies can facilitate access to knowledge for auditors serving a specific industry in those locations. We find that industry specialists in agglomerations earn a fee premium in excess of specialists in other markets. We find that nonspecialist offices in agglomerations also earn fee premiums in that industry when compared to nonspecialists in other markets even when controlling for these groups’ absolute share of the national market. We also address whether or not this expertise can be shared among offices in an agglomeration specialist's firm. We find that audit offices that have easy connections to a within-firm office in an agglomerated market can earn a fee premium relative to more distant offices, suggesting a benefit from knowledge transfer. This fee premium accrues to offices that would not be considered a specialist using traditional market share measures in a given industry. These findings indicate that the benefit of industry specialization depends on more than local market share.     

Note on audit fee premiums to client size and industry specialization

This research note examines the impact of client size on the estimation of audit fee premiums in the Australian market for audit services. Previous research suggests that higher audit fees are expected for both larger clients and for industry specialization. We find that in the Australian market for audit services, the fee premium attributed to industry specialist audit firms is concentrated in the audit fees paid by the largest clients in each industry. One reason for higher fees paid by larger clients is the demand for additional audit services. We find higher fees for companies cross‐listed on US exchanges. We also find that fee premiums to auditors that are city‐industry leaders are strongly related to client size.     

Audit Quality and the Market Valuation of Banks’ Allowance for Loan Losses*

The recent banking crisis has led market participants to focus on the adequacy and quality of banks’ balance sheet items such as the allowance for loan losses. Beaver and Engel (1996) document that the capital market prices the nondiscretionary component of loan loss allowance negatively and the discretionary component less negatively. Using data from the pre‐crisis period and three measures of audit quality, auditor type (i.e., Big 5 versus non–Big 5), auditor industry specialization/expertise, and audit and nonaudit fees paid to auditors, we examine the effect of audit quality on the market valuation of the discretionary component of the allowance for loan losses. We find that, relative to the nondiscretionary component, the market valuation of the discretionary component of loan loss allowance is higher for banks audited by Big 5 auditors than for banks audited by non–Big 5 auditors. We also find that the relative market valuation of the discretionary component of loan loss allowance is increasing in auditor expertise. Regarding the impact of fees paid to auditors, we find that banks paying higher audit fees have higher relative market valuation of the discretionary component of the allowance for loan losses, but banks that pay higher nonaudit fees do not.     

最终控制人性质、审计行业专业性与控股股东代理成本——来自我国上市公司的经验证据

本文以我国2001—2008年上市公司为研究对象,对审计行业专业性与控股股东代理成本的相关关系进行了探讨。研究发现:审计行业专业性具有降低控股股东代理成本的作用;考虑最终控制人性质因素后,在非政府控制的上市公司中,审计行业专业性降低控股股东代理成本的作用更为明显;结合考虑两权分离度因素的影响,在非政府控制的上市公司中,审计行业专业性对控股股东代理成本的约束作用随着两权分离度的提高而增强,但在政府控制的上市公司,两权分离度、审计行业专业性与控股股东代理成本相关性并不明显。     

Do seasoned industry specialists provide higher audit quality? A re-examination

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the recent findings in Gaver and Utke (2019) (GU) who find that seasoned industry specialist auditors provide higher audit quality. We first illustrate how the magnitude of residuals from the accruals model can vary significantly by industry, thus highlighting the importance of including industry fixed effects when the dependent variable is discretionary accruals. We next replicate GU’s findings. We first attempt to replicate prior literature after including industry fixed effects in the audit quality (discretionary accruals) models. This is an important control, as the relevant benchmark for a firm with an industry specialist auditor is a peer firm in the same industry with a non-specialist auditor. We find that after including industry fixed effects, there is no association between seasoned industry specialist auditors and discretionary accruals. We also find that the association between industry specialization and discretionary accruals is very sensitive to the way in which the researcher calculates specialization. Our findings are informative for shareholders of public companies who vote on auditor ratification.