审计委员会主席的地理位置对公司审计质量的影响

选取沪深上市公司2008—2020年的数据，采用多元线性回归和基于PSM的检验方法，验证了审计委员会主席地理位置与审计质量的关系。研究表明：审计委员会主席距离公司地理距离与审计质量显著负相关，其中，该距离与应计盈余管理水平正相关，说明审计委员会主席距离公司越远，盈余管理现象越严重；该距离与审计报告出具标准意见的报告频率正相关，说明审计委员会主席距离公司越远，公司越容易被出具标准意见的审计报告。进一步研究发现：审计委员会主席距离公司地理距离与CFO兼任审计委员会成员的现象显著正相关，说明该距离越远，CFO兼任审计委员会成员的现象越普遍。这些研究结论为上市公司遴选审计委员会主席时，对审计委员会主席客观条件的要求提供理论依据。     

高管审计背景、盈余管理与异常审计收费

利用2004~2012年中国A股上市公司财务数据,考察高管审计背景对公司盈余管理行为和审计定价决策的影响。研究中,将高管审计背景分为高管审计经历与事务所关联两个维度。研究发现,高管具有审计背景的公司为了实现较低风险水平下的私有收益最大化,有从应计盈余管理转向实施真实盈余管理的倾向,事务所可能采取的策略是增加额外的审计收费以弥补过高的审计风险,而"校友效应"却使事务所显著减少该类公司的审计收费。研究表明,高管审计背景可能会导致公司财务报告信息质量下降、审计风险上升,证实了其对公司财务报告信息质量及事务所审计质量的不利影响。本研究为加强对高管审计背景公司的监管及完善审计师跳槽的"冷却期"政策提供经验证据。     

审计委员会设立与盈余稳健性关系的实证研究

本文选取2004年-2007所有A股上市公司作为样本,运用Basu(1997)盈余持续性的模型,从审计委员会设立的横向与纵向两个维度分别检验其与盈余稳健性的相关性,发现无论是设立前后还是设立与否,两者均表现出较强的相关性,这表明审计委员会的设立的确能够提升公司的盈余稳健性。     

审计委员会与审计总监任期重叠影响公司盈余质量吗

本文以审计委员会和内部审计总监任期重叠为视角,采用2008-2018年上市公司数据,考察两者任期重叠时间长短对公司盈余质量的影响,研究发现:审计委员会和审计总监的任期重叠时间越长,公司盈余质量越高;并且,这一正向关系在审计委员会信息获取成本和公司股权制衡度越高时更显著;进一步研究发现,审计委员会特征、审计总监的财务专长和内部审计部门权威性以及外部审计任期和行业专长对两者关系的影响不显著,但审计总监在内部审计部门工作年限对两者关系则有显著增量影响,且签字会计师变更会削弱任期重叠的的正面作用.本文研究结论为公司内部治理机构之间相互长期合作的重要性和必要性提供了经验证据,对如何完善内部治理和监督具有一定启示作用.     

盈余管理、信息风险与审计意见

盈余管理和信息风险是影响审计意见的两个重要因素。已有研究主要关注当期盈余管理与审计意见的关系,少有关注信息风险对审计意见的影响。本文运用我国上市公司的数据,同时研究盈余管理和信息风险对审计意见的影响。检验结果表明,公司的信息风险与审计师出具非标意见概率显著正相关,而当期盈余管理与审计师出具非标意见的概率无显著相关性。这表明,审计师出具审计意见时主要考虑信息风险,而没有证据表明审计师出具审计意见时考虑了盈余管理。本文的研究结论深化了已有审计意见和审计质量决定因素方面的研究。     

内部控制审计对会计盈余质量的影响——基于沪市A股上市公司的实证分析

本文利用沪市上市公司2010、2011年内部控制审计及盈余质量数据考察了内部控制审计是否能够提高公司的盈余质量,即对内部控制审计的有效性问题进行了研究。通过分析发现,披露内部控制审计报告公司的会计盈余质量要高于未披露内部控制审计报告的公司;上市公司在决定是否披露内部控制审计报告时存在自选择问题,在控制自选择问题后,结论依然不变。另外,我们还发现首次披露内部控制审计报告的上市公司盈余质量显著高于上一年度,即内部控制审计能够提高公司会计盈余质量。本文的研究结论支持将内部控制审计作为法定要求,以提升上市公司盈余质量。     

自愿中报审计能减少盈余管理吗?——基于自选择模型的实证分析

中国上市公司除特殊情况外可以自愿选择是否进行中报审计。本文使用2001—2005年自愿选择进行中报审计的445家 A 股上市公司和其配对样本公司的数据,研究了公司进行中期报告审计的决定因素和中报审计对盈余管理的影响。我们发现,公司的 ROE、财务杠杆以及会计师事务所是否前十大对中报审计的购买有显著影响。考虑到中报审计可能是上市公司自选择的结果,我们进一步采用 Heckman 的两阶段模型方法来控制中报审计决定的内生性。研究发现,尽管自愿审计公司的中报显示更低的非正常应计利润,但没有证据表明这是由于审计造成的,模型估计结果表明,具有较高盈余质量的公司更倾向于进行中报审计。     

审计费用的提高使存在盈余管理的公司获得标准审计意见了吗?

国内外对盈余管理与审计意见的相关性进行了理论实证研究,但对审计费用的调节作用研究不多,且尚未得到一致结论.本文运用我国2012-2014年沪深两市A股上市公司的数据,对盈余管理与审计意见的相关性及审计费用对其的调节作用进行实证研究.研究结果表明:盈余管理程度与非标准审计意见显著正相关,审计费用与获得非标准审计意见显著负相关.审计费用降低了盈余管理与非标准审计意见的相关性,即在盈余管理程度相同的情况下,支付的审计费用越高,被非标比率就越低.     

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。     

独立性威胁、审计委员会制约有效性:理论分析与实证研究

本文在理论上深入分析审计制度安排中独立性威胁现象及审计委员会制度对独立性威胁的制约作用之后,基于2002—2004年我国上市公司审计委员会设立的基本情况,以审计意见和事务所变更为反应变量,对审计委员会制约独立性威胁的有效性进行了实证研究。研究发现,设立审计委员会的公司更不易被出具非标准审计意见,说明审计委员会的设立并不能有效提高审计师的独立性,但这同时也是反映政策效应的结果,即规模较大的上市公司倾向于主动配合监管政策设立审计委员会。本文的研究还发现,审计委员会的设立并不能令审计师免于因出具令上市公司不满的审计意见而被改聘的结果,说明我国的审计委员会制度未能在制约独立性威胁方面发挥作用,该结论同时得到实践调查结果与补充检验的支持。据此,本文认为,我国审计委员会制度在制约独立性威胁方面的功能还有待于进一步落实。     

Audit committees and earnings quality

This research investigates whether audit committees are associated with improved earnings quality for a sample of Australian listed companies prior to the introduction of mandatory audit committee requirements in 2003. Two measures of earnings quality are used based on models first developed by Jones (1991 ) and Dechow and Dichev (2002 ). Our results indicate that formation of an audit committee reduces intentional earnings management but not accrual estimation errors. We also find differences in the associations between audit committee accounting expertise and the two earnings quality measures. Other audit committee characteristics examined are not significantly related to either earnings quality measure.     

审计委员会-会计师事务所连锁关系与审计调整

本文运用我国独到的审计调整数据,研究审计委员会-会计师事务所连锁关系对审计质量的影响问题.研究发现,审计委员会-会计师事务所连锁关系能够提高审计调整的概率,这一结果在控制内生性和排除潜在替代性解释之后仍然成立,表明审计委员会-会计师事务所连锁关系能够促进审计委员会与会计师事务所之间的信息共享,从而提高审计质量.研究还发现,审计委员会-会计师事务所连锁关系对审计调整概率的提升效应,在机构投资者持股和管理层持股的公司以及国内会计师事务所中更为明显.进一步的研究发现,连锁的审计委员会成员为审计委员会主任时,上述效应更为明显;而连锁的审计委员会成员是否为独立董事对结果没有明显的影响.     

Overlapping Membership on Audit and Compensation Committees and Financial Reporting Quality

This paper examines whether the audit committee members of a board improve financial reporting quality if they are also on their organisation's compensation committee. Audit committees are responsible for overseeing the financial reporting process of organisations and have been urged to broaden their understanding of business risk and of the incentives provided by their firms’ executive compensation structures. Acknowledging the interrelationships among executive compensation, risk‐taking and financial reporting quality, members of audit and compensation committees have been advocating more information sharing between the two committees. Using archival data from a sample of Australian Stock Exchange listed companies, and discretionary accruals as a proxy for financial reporting quality, this study finds that firms with overlapping committees have better quality financial reporting than those without such an overlap. Our evidence for this is stronger in cases where managers tend to manage earnings upwards in order to meet or beat earnings benchmarks. We also find that the beneficial effect of the existence of overlapping committees is adversely affected by the equity holdings of directors with overlapping memberships.     

Audit Committee and CEO Ethnicity and Audit fees: Some Malaysian evidence

This study extends the literature on audit pricing by examining the relationship between ethnicity (bumiputra vs non-bumiputra), corporate governance attributes, and audit fees using data from 559 publicly-listed companies in Malaysia in 2005. Drawing from theories of ethnicity and political economy, we discuss our two hypotheses that predict positive associations between audit fees and (1) the proportion of bumiputra members on audit committees, and (2) the presence of a bumiputra CEO. The results support the hypothesis that firms with bumiputra CEOs incur higher audit fees, but we do not find an association for firms with bumiputra-dominant audit committees. In additional analysis, we find that the audit premium paid by firms with a bumiputra CEO is higher for the smaller client firms. Further, we find that firms managed by a bumiputra CEO with a fully bumiputra-composed audit committee tend to pay higher audit fees than the other firms, indicating that there is a combined ethnicity effect on audit fees.     

Audit committee diligence around initial audit engagement

Studies focusing on governance mechanisms argue that auditor monitoring is one of several governance mechanisms that exist in the firm, and these mechanisms supplement each other. Extending this argument, I examine whether firms support auditor monitoring with audit committee monitoring when auditor oversight is deemed to be weak. Prior auditing literature argues that audit quality is affected by auditors' lack of familiarity with their clients' activities. Since lack of auditor–client familiarity exists in the first year of auditor–client tenure, I examine whether firms increase their audit committee monitoring during the year of auditor change. For a sample of firms that changed auditors between 2006 and 2012, the findings show that audit committees meet more frequently in the first year of audit engagement. Further tests show that firms' past reporting behavior play a significant role in the demand for more audit committee meetings and the increase in the audit committee meetings in the initial year of auditor engagement positively affects reporting quality.     

《萨班斯-奥克斯利法》对完善我国上市公司审计委员会制度的影响

我国上市公司的审计委员会制度无论在法律规定还是在实践中,都处于初期阶段,有待于成熟和规范.本文通过对《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》中美国较为成熟的审计委员会制度的变革过程及变革成果的认识,在分析我国上市公司审计委员会制度实施环境和存在问题的基础上,对完善我国上市公司审计委员会制度提出合理建议.     

高管会计师事务所关联、审计任期与审计质量

本文研究了高管会计师事务所关联对审计任期(事务所任期)和审计质量的影响,以及事务所关联存在和不存在的条件下审计任期与审计质量的关系。实证结果表明,有事务所关联的公司更可能收到标准审计意见,从而说明事务所关联降低了审计质量;同时,事务所关联关系延长了审计任期,即存在事务所关联的公司比没有事务所关联的公司与事务所合作的时间更长。在有事务所关联的公司和没有事务所关联的公司中,审计任期与审计质量之间的关系不同,进而说明有事务所关联公司的审计质量并不取决于审计任期,而是事务所关联本身的影响所造成的。     

Audit Committee Members’ Reputation Incentives and Their Effectiveness in Monitoring the Financial Reporting Process

We examine whether the reputation incentives of audit committee members are associated with their effectiveness in monitoring the financial reporting process. Prior research assumes that audit committee members allocate their effort proportionately across all memberships on which they serve. However, our findings suggest that audit committee members with multiple audit committee memberships tend to focus their attention on the memberships that provide them with the greatest reputation incentives. Specifically, firms with a larger proportion of audit committee members where the membership is the most prominent are associated with higher financial reporting quality and more effective monitoring of internal control. Additional tests reveal that audit committee members’ reputation incentives are driving our results rather than independent non-audit committee members’ reputation incentives. We conclude that reputation is a strong incentive for audit committee members, such that it influences their monitoring effectiveness over the financial reporting process.     

Some Economics of Audit Market Reform

The purpose of audit market reforms since 2001 is to restore public confidence in the institution of auditing based on two considerations: (1) ensuring audit quality; and (2) controlling the ‘adverse effect of competition’ in audit supply. Market reforms for audit quality are delivered through a package of prescribed actions motivated by an analytical relationship between audit quality and its possible determinants: (1) limiting audit tenure through a combination of mandatory firm rotation, partner rotation and re‐tendering; (2) limiting provision of non‐audit services (NAS) by the incumbent auditor; and (3) joint auditing and empowering the audit committee to enhance audit quality. This paper examines the competing independence hypothesis and expertise hypothesis that produce ambiguous theoretical relationships for audit quality–audit tenure and the independence‐provision of NAS. We then review whether the empirical literature resolves these conundrums. We also review the usefulness of joint auditing and empowering the audit committee to improve audit quality in the context of audit market reform.