注册会计师定期轮换规定的利与弊

2003年10月,中国证监会和财政部联合发布《关于证券期货业务签字注册会计师定期轮换的规定》(以下简称《定期轮换规定》),将证券市场审计业务中的签字注册会计师定期轮换行为予以强制化,规定了在一般情况下,签字注册会计师连续为某一相关机构提供审计服务不得超过5年。这一规定     

注册会计师的任期和强制轮换与会计盈余稳健性——来自沪深A股上市公司的经验证据

本文实证检验了注册会计师定期轮换规定对我国上市公司会计报告盈余稳健性的影响。研究发现:签字注册会计师任期对客户公司的会计报告盈余稳健性的影响受到会计师事务所与客户公司经济依存度的作用,在事务所经济重要程度较低的客户公司中,签字会计师任期的延长显著降低会计报告的盈余稳健性;而在事务所经济重要程度较高的客户公司中,任期与会计盈余稳健性的关系则并不明确。同时,上市公司在按照《关于证券期货审计业务签字注册会计师定期轮换的规定》更替签字注册会计师后,会计稳健性并未发生显著变化。这表明尽管注册会计师定期轮换规定的实施在我国是必要的,但其实施规定对上市公司盈余稳健性的提高并不完善。本文建议未来轮换规定可以考虑在事务所轮换层面提供更细致的要求,削弱现有轮换规定下客户公司与事务所长期合作关系。     

注册会计师定期轮换规定的利与弊

2003年10月,中国证监会和财政部联合发布《关于证券期货业务签字注册会计师定期轮换的规定》(以下简称《定期轮换规定》),将证券市场审计业务中的签字注册会计师定期轮换行为予以强制化,规定了在一般情况下,签字注册会计师连续为某一相关机构提供审计服务不得超过5年.这一规定的出台,究竟对业界产生了多大的影响,强制实行签字注册会计师定期轮换制究竟利大还是弊大?业内人士对《定期轮换规定》的执行是叫好还是叫屈呢?笔者就这一疑惑分别电话采访了几位省内会计专家和知名注册会计师,大致得到以下几种信息:     

关于会计师事务所强制轮换的思考

随着安然等一系列公司会计造假事件,公众对会计师事务所在保证会计信息质量方面的作用持怀疑态度,为了改变自己的尴尬境地,迫切需要树立注册会计师的公众形象,将强制轮换作为提高注册会计师独立性和审计质量的备选措施之一。本文就会计师事务所强制轮换的利弊进行了分析,并针对我国情况提出建议。     

强制轮换与审计质量相关性研究——来自中国证券市场的经验证据

近些年来,接连不断的财务欺诈案件使CPA的公正性和作用深受质疑,审计质量的提高再次成为各界关注的焦点。任期过长导致会计师事务所或CPA与被审单位相互融通和依赖,审计独立性丧失,被认为是导致审计质量下降的主要原因,于是人们把希望寄托于审计轮换制度。然而轮换制度对审计质量提高的有效性在学术界和实务界颇具争议。本文通过实证研究方法,对进行签字CPA强制轮换公司轮换当年的盈余质量与强制轮换前一年盈余质量、自愿性会计师事务所变更的公司盈余质量当年以及自愿性所内签字CPA变更的公司盈余质量进行了对比,并检验了几种变更形式对不同盈余方向的作用。     

审计轮换利弊谈

审计轮换制主要有两种形式：一是事务所轮换，即规定在一定的年限内，上市公司要更换聘任的事务所；二是注册会计师和合伙人轮换，即对同一客户，事务所内部对相应负责的合伙人、签字注册会计师、项目经理按照一定的年限实行轮换。     

强制轮换与审计质量相关性研究——来自中国证券市场的经验证据

近些年来,接连不断的财务欺诈案件使CPA的公正性和作用深受质疑．审计质量的提高再次成为各界关注的焦点。任期过长导致会计师事务所或CPA与被审单位相互融通和依赖。审计独立性丧失。被认为是导致审计质量下降的主要原因,于是人们把希望寄托于审计轮换制度。然而轮换制度对审计质量提高的有效性在学术界和实务界颇具争议。本文通过实证研究方法．对进行签字CPA强制轮换公司轮换当年的盈余质量与强制轮换前一年盈余质量、自愿性会计师事务所变更的公司盈余质量当年以及自愿性所内签字CPA变更的公司盈余质量进行了对比,并检验了几种变更形式对不同盈余方向的作用。     

关于我国审计任期与强制轮换的思考

<正>一、研究背景世界上许多国家很早就制定了强制轮换制度,其中有些国家在实施了一段时间后就废止了,因其未达到预期效果,如曾实行该制度的加拿大和西班牙就已经先后放弃。尽管如此,仍然有很多国家坚持或开始实施该项制度,如意大利的证券监管机构对其监管的上市公司聘任的会计师事务所规定了9年的法定轮换;新加坡从2002年3月开始对设在本国的银行要求实施会计师事务所强制轮换;英格兰及威尔士特许会计师协会     

签字注册会计师强制轮换制度提高了审计质量吗?——基于中国上市公司的实证研究

本文分析了我国签字注册会计师强制轮换制度对审计质量的影响,并检验了影响制度效果的主要因素。研究发现,强制轮换制度总体上没有显著提高审计质量,其原因一是强制轮换制度执行中存在规避行为,导致审计师变更频繁和过渡审计师的出现,其对应审计质量较低;二是强制轮换制度实施后,新任审计师的平均专业胜任能力下降,导致审计质量下降。而具有原客户审计经验的审计师在被强制轮换后重新审计该客户的审计质量较高,这能在一定程度上抑制上市公司审计质量的整体下滑。本文的发现对进一步完善签字注册会计师强制轮换制度有较好的参考意义。     

会计师事务所强制轮换问题研究评述

关于会计师事务所强制轮换(以下简称强制轮换)以及审计任期与审计质量之间关系的争论由来已久。近年来的一系列财务丑闻再次使强制轮换为各国所关注。到目前为止,意大利、巴西、沙特阿拉伯和奥地利已对公众公司实行会计师事务所强制轮换,新加坡已对在该国设立的银行实施会计师事务所强制轮换,欧盟建议立法实行强制轮换,其他一些国家也正在就是否实施会计师事务所强制轮换进行审慎考虑。如美国国会2002年通过的《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》责成美国审计总署研究强制轮换的潜在影响。在国内,这一问题也引起了证监会、财政部以及中注协的关注。本文回顾了与这一问题有关的理论观点以及经验证据,以期为国内学术界的进一步研究提供参考,并为监管者提供一些借鉴。     

Signing auditors' cultural background and debt financing costs

This study explores the effect of signing auditors' cultural background on debt financing costs. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2019, we find a negative association between signing auditors of Confucian origin and the cost of debt, indicating that signing auditors who grow up in strong Confucian atmospheres increase perceptions of audit quality. Furthermore, empirical results show that signing auditors of Confucian origin enhance accounting information quality. Meanwhile, these signing auditors can obtain high audit fees, attract more clients, and are more likely to be selected by client firms when changing auditors. Additional tests document that signing auditors' gender, education level, and working experience attenuate the negative relationships between signing auditors' Confucian background and debt financing costs. The negative effect of signing auditors' cultural background on debt financing costs is more pronounced in non-state-owned firms and firms with less analyst coverage. This paper extends the literature about the influencing factors of financing costs and provides insights into the economic consequence of culture.     

Conservative Reporting and the Incremental Effect of Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Audit Partner Rotation vs Audit Firm Rotation in South Korea

In this paper, we take advantage of Korea's unique experiment with mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR) and mandatory audit partner rotation (MAPR) to ascertain their influence on audit quality, proxied by conditional conservatism. Overall, we find that the implementation of MAFR did not have the desired effect. Firms that adopted MAFR demonstrate higher levels of conservatism in previous periods under MAPR (or compared to voluntary adopters). Furthermore, we find that audit tenure increases conservatism levels consistent with the auditor expertise hypothesis. However, whilst evidence suggests MAFR decreases audit quality on the whole, we find that firms that switch from non‐Big 4 to Big 4 auditors demonstrate higher conservatism because Big 4 auditors are more likely to demand conservative accounting practices, consistent with Big 4 audit firm knowledge superiority. Overall, the results suggest that MAFR's negative effect on audit quality can be mitigated by Big 4 auditor supervision.     

How Do Various Forms of Auditor Rotation Affect Audit Quality? Evidence from China

The Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal has raised concerns internationally about auditor independence, audit quality, and the need for regulatory action such as mandatory auditor rotation. China's unique institutional features provide a setting in which we can compare comprehensively the various forms of auditor rotation at different levels (partner vs. firm) and in different settings (voluntary vs. mandatory). In addition, institutional conditions vary dramatically across China, which provides us with an opportunity to test whether the development of market and legal institutions affects the impact of rotation on audit quality. We expect that auditors are less (more) constrained by market forces and less (more) self-disciplined to maintain audit quality in regions with less (more) developed market and legal institutions. Therefore, mandatory rotation may play a more (less) important role in less (more) developed regions. Using auditors' propensity to issue a modified audit opinion (MAO) as a proxy for audit quality, we find that firms with mandatory audit partner rotations are associated with a significantly higher likelihood of an MAO than are no-rotation firms. However, this effect is restricted to firms located in less developed regions. We find similar evidence for voluntary audit firm rotation although the significance level is much weaker than for mandatory partner rotation. Other forms of auditor rotations (i.e., mandatory audit firm rotation and voluntary audit partner rotation), have no effect on MAOs.     

Auditor rotation and the appearance of independence: Evidence from non-professional investors

We examine the impact of audit firm versus partner rotation on non-professional investors’ independence-related perceptions, extending prior research on auditor rotation and independence in fact. Arguments for mandatory audit firm rotation continue to be made by regulators and investor groups based, in part, on the idea that firm rotation will incrementally strengthen independence in appearance relative to audit partner rotation. We report the results of two experiments. The first examines 5-year audit firm versus partner rotation under relatively weak or strong audit committees. We find no statistically significant difference in beliefs about how much of an income reducing audit difference management will record, or in beliefs about auditor independence, between the two auditor rotation conditions. On the other hand, we find that non-professional investors do believe more of the audit difference will be recorded, and the auditors will be more independent, under a strong audit committee than a relatively weak audit committee. The second experiment provides further evidence on audit firm versus partner rotation by examining a setting involving a 26-year audit firm–client relationship. Again, no statistically significant differences between the two auditor rotation conditions were found. These findings suggest that compared to audit partner rotation, audit firm rotation does not strengthen independence in appearance among non-professional investors and that non-professional investors recognize the value of strong audit committees.     

Information sharing between mutual funds and auditors

This paper examines whether there is information sharing between mutual funds and their auditors about the auditors’ other listed firm clients. Using data from the Chinese market, we find that mutual funds earn higher profits from trading in firms that share the same auditors. The effects are more pronounced when firms have a more opaque information environment and when the audit partners for the fund and the partners for the listed firm share school ties. The evidence is consistent with information flowing from auditors to mutual funds, providing mutual funds with an information advantage in firms that share the same auditors. Our findings are robust to the use of audit-firm mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as exogenous shocks and several other robustness checks. We further find that auditors benefit by charging higher audit fees for mutual fund clients and by improving their audit quality for listed firm clients. Our study provides evidence of bi-directional information sharing between two important market intermediaries.     

New Auditors’ Decisions for Released Firms from the Mandatory Auditor Designation Rule: Evidence From South Korea

This study examines the effect of the mandatory designation rule on audit fees charged and audit hours rendered by auditors for firms released from the mandatory auditor designation rule in the Korean audit market. Under the mandatory auditor designation rule, which took effect in 1991, problematic firms are assigned new auditors by the Financial Supervisory Service. Previous studies suggest that this regulation positively affects the quality of audits by promoting auditor independence. Thus, this study hypothesises that firms that have been subjected to mandatory auditor designation improve the quality of their financial reporting, and that auditors hired after the mandatory designation period account for reduced audit risks when determining audit fees and audit hours. This study shows that audit fees and audit hours of firms released from the mandatory auditor designation rule are lower than those of other initial audit engagements. Taken together, this study's findings reinforce the notion that auditors’ perceptions of changes in audit risk yield corresponding changes in the audit fees they charge and audit hours they render.     

The impact of auditor rotation on auditor–client negotiation

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to investigate how mandatory audit firm rotation affects auditor–client negotiations. Drawing upon process theories of negotiation, we examine the strategies used by auditors and clients as well as the outcomes of their negotiations in alternative settings in which mandatory rotation is imposed or is not imposed. We posit that mandatory rotation changes (1) the dynamics of the audit market by increasing the number of clients who are in the market for a new auditor, and (2) the political costs to a client who switches auditors. These changes, in turn, alter the willingness of the auditor and the client to cooperate during negotiation. The results suggest that with mandatory rotation auditors adopt less cooperative negotiation strategies, producing asset values that are more in line with the auditor’s preferences than with the client’s preferences and more negotiation impasses.     

Audit Firm Tenure and Audit Quality in a Constrained Market

We examine the relation between audit quality and audit firm tenure in the Iranian audit market, which is constrained by government policies that create intense competition for clients among many small audit firms. We develop arguments that these circumstances create cost pressures that entrench low audit quality and render auditors' plans more predictable to managers wishing to misstate their accounts. Using publicly available data for the audits of listed companies in Iran prior to mandatory audit firm rotation and the incidence of misstated financial reports identified by the Iranian Association of Certified Public Accountants Inspection Office, we find that the likelihood of a misstatement is lowest in the first two years of audit firm tenure. We also find that the likelihood of misstatement is not associated with the year preceding a mandatory audit firm rotation, suggesting outgoing auditor effort is not sensitive to the prospect of subsequent revelations of deficiencies. Although our results from a pre-mandatory rotation period show that frequent rotations appear to improve the financial reporting quality in our sample, we are wary of interpreting these results as support for the mandatory audit firm rotation policy in Iran. Rather, we suggest this is a peculiar consequence of deficiencies in audit quality inherent in the Iranian market.     

Regulating the Market for Audit Services: A Game Theoretic Approach

We apply game theory to model how alternative mandatory audit firm rotation regimes can affect the strategic interaction between auditee and auditor firms, and analyze potential consequences on detection risk and impairment of auditor scepticism. The major results suggest that: (1) relative to an initial state with no rotation requirement but high probability for impaired auditor scepticism, imposing either short-term or long-term mandatory audit firm rotation will remove the threat to auditor scepticism and lead to higher audit fees and lower detection risk; (2) relative to long-term mandatory audit firm rotation, imposing a short-term rotation will lead to lower audit fees and higher detection risk, resulting from greater informational frictions. We further find that imposing supplementary regulatory instruments, such as increased regulatory scrutiny of the auditee and/or auditor, can be used to lower the detection risk and increase audit quality. We discuss implications of these findings for empirical research.