上市公司内部控制、诉讼风险与异常审计费用

本文以2012至2021年国内上市公司为研究样本，基于风险导向审计理念，研究了上市公司内部控制水平与异常审计费用之间的关系，并从诉讼风险角度探究了内部控制对异常审计费用的影响机制。研究结果表明上市公司的内部控制水平越高，异常审计费用越低，并且该关系在会计师事务所为非四大会计师事务所时更为显著。此外，本文还发现诉讼风险在内部控制与异常审计费用的关系中发挥着部分中介作用，因此，企业不断加强内部控制建设不仅能够降低诉讼风险，还有助于降低审计人员对风险的感知。     

实际控制人的境外居留权对审计费用影响的实证研究

近年来,随着我国经济的快速增长,我国公民通过旅游、经商、工作、学习等方式开展着频繁的国际交流。与之相伴的是,越来越多的中国公民因为各种原因开始取得境外居留权,甚至外国国籍。笔者采用我国民营上市公司2005—2013年的数据,从审计风险的角度实证考察了公司实际控制人拥有境外居留权对审计费用的影响。研究发现:公司实际控制人拥有境外居留权显著增加了企业的审计费用;进一步研究发现,引渡条约显著影响了境外居留权与审计费用的关系。实证结果表明,当企业的实际控制人取得境外居留权,且此地区未与我国签署引渡条约时,审计费用显著增加,而当企业的实际控制人取得境外居留权,且此地区与我国签订引渡条约时,审计费用并未显著增加。研究结论为我国上市公司实际控制人拥有境外居留权的经济后果提供了经验证据,对监管部门尤其是审计师也具有一定的借鉴意义。     

内部控制信息披露对审计费用影响的研究——基于沪市A股上市公司2011年数据的经验验证

本文利用我国沪市A股上市公司2011年的数据,不但进一步检验了传统的审计费用影响因素,还实证研究了内部控制信息披露与审计费用之间的相关关系。研究发现,上市公司是否披露内部控制自我评价报告与审计费用在5%的水平下显著负相关,是否披露内部控制鉴证报告与审计费用在1%的水平下显著正相关,即内部控制信息披露情况会对审计费用产生显著影响。     

内部控制信息披露对审计费用影响的研究——基于沪市A股上市公司2011年数据的经验验证

本文利用我国沪市A股上市公司2011年的数据,不但进一步检验了传统的审计费用影响因素,还实证研究了内部控制信息披露与审计费用之间的相关关系。研究发现,上市公司是否披露内部控制自我评价报告与审计费用在5%的水平上显著负相关,是否披露内部控制鉴证报告与审计费用在1%的水平上显著正相关,即内部控制信息披露情况会对审计费用产生显著影响。     

内部控制与审计定价研究——基于中国上市公司的经验证据

企业的内部控制质量直接影响着注册会计师的审计投入和审计风险,进而影响到其审计定价水平。本文以我国2008—2009年深沪两市1395家上市公司作为研究样本,实证考察了企业内部控制质量与注册会计师审计定价之间的关系。研究结果表明:注册会计师的审计收费与企业的内部控制质量之间存在着不显著的负相关性。通过在模型中引入相关公司治理变量,本文还发现合理的公司治理机制可以提高企业内部控制的整体质量,从而显著地降低注册会计师的审计收费水平。本文的启示意义在于:完善企业的内部控制制度有助于注册会计师开展风险导向审计,从而降低审计风险和审计成本,提高审计质量。     

企业创新能够提高审计质量吗?

随着产业转型升级、"大众创业、万众创新"等国家战略的实施,企业创新日益成为学术界研究的热点。基于现代风险导向审计理论,研究企业创新投入对审计质量的影响,并以产权性质为视角,进一步研究两者之间的关系。以2008-2015年上市公司为样本,研究发现:企业创新与审计质量显著正相关,并发现在国有企业中,其正相关性更强。采用工具变量,控制内生性后,结论依然成立。考虑制度环境因素,进一步发现:当政府干预程度较弱、金融发展水平较高及法治水平较低时,企业创新与审计质量的正相关性更强。研究结论为现代风险导向审计理论和审计准则特别是研发费用审计准则的制定等提供了经验证据。     

“一带一路”沿线国家税收竞争力对中国对外直接投资的影响

"一带一路"沿线国家税收竞争力对中国对外直接投资具有重要影响。实证研究发现,"一带一路"沿线国家税收竞争力的提升显著促进了中国对外直接投资的增加。因而,中国政府应致力于加强国际税收合作与区域协调,构建"共商、共建、共享"税收新体系;为企业投资"一带一路"沿线国家(地区)提供优质的跨境涉税服务和税务风险预警指引,从宏观上引导企业对外直接投资健康发展;完善国内税收政策体系以提升国际税收竞争力,更好吸引外来投资;企业应密切关注东道国税收政策变化,有效防范风险,利用"一带一路"倡议带来的机遇,积极拓展海外市场。     

企业创新与审计费用北大核心

不同于以往文献从单一或笼统维度刻画企业创新,本文同时从成本、风险与收益三个维度检验企业创新对审计费用的影响。研究发现,企业创新成本越高,审计费用越高;创新风险越大,审计费用也越高;而创新价值越高,审计费用越低。该结论在一系列稳健性检验后依然成立。同时,当企业融资约束更严重时,创新成本对审计费用的增加效应更加显著;当企业未来收益波动性越高时,创新风险对审计费用的增加效应更加显著;当创新信息披露质量越高时,创新价值对审计费用的降低效应更加显著。本文从创新成本、风险和收益的多维度视角丰富了审计费用影响因素的相关文献,也对更好地评价和解读上市公司的创新行为具有参考价值。     

“一带一路”倡议提出的股票市场反应--基于企业对外投资视角的研究

本文以A股上市公司为研究样本,利用事件研究法研究"一带一路"倡议提出的股票市场反应。研究结果表明,在"一带一路"倡议提出后,"一带一路"倡议提出前存在对外投资的企业以及对外投资中面临较高政治风险的企业,其股票市场反应显著为正。按照产权性质进行分样本检验发现,在"一带一路"倡议正式提出时,存在对外投资企业显著为正的累计超额回报主要体现在国有企业样本中;在《愿景与行动》发布时,存在对外投资企业显著为正的累计超额回报主要体现在非国有企业样本中。     

有限合伙协议架构与公司审计费用

本文以我国2014-2021年在沪深A股上市的非国有公司为研究样本，考察了有限合伙协议架构对公司审计费用的影响，并基于审计风险的视角揭示其作用机制。研究发现，实际控制人使用有限合伙协议架构显著增加了上市公司审计费用，其作用机制在于有限合伙协议架构增加了实际控制人与中小股东的代理冲突、提高了经营风险，这增加了审计风险，进而导致公司审计费用增加。进一步研究发现，在内外部治理水平低、两权分离程度高、实际控制人担任经理人、客户集中度高、外部竞争更激烈的企业中，有限合伙协议架构对上市公司审计费用的正向影响更加显著。本文在理论上丰富了有限合伙协议架构的经济后果、控制权设计与审计费用等领域的相关文献，在实践上则为审计师、上市公司和监管机构更深刻地认识有限合伙协议架构的重要影响提供了借鉴。     

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.     

Auditor Fees, Market Microstructure, and Firm Transparency

Abstract:  Auditors, as corporate insiders, have access to private information regarding the firm's financial and business opacity that is unavailable to outside investors. We test whether auditors price their knowledge of firm opacity in their audit fees by examining two competing hypotheses. The first states that higher audit fees may reflect the greater risk that the auditor faces in auditing an opaque firm. Under this hypothesis, market based measures of opacity will be positively correlated with higher fees. The second hypothesis states that firms buy reputational capital from their auditor by paying high fees in an attempt to improve the market's perception of the firm's transparency. In this case, higher audit fees are negatively correlated with market based measures of opacity. Our results are consistent with the first hypothesis, that auditors price opacity risk into their fees.     

Audit fees around dismissals and resignations: Additional evidence

This paper offers new findings about how audit fees vary around auditor dismissals and resignations. For dismissals, we find evidence of lower than normal fees before and after an auditor change, consistent with the view that both incumbent and successor auditors adjust fees downward to retain the client. Our evidence also shows that incumbent and successor auditors charge unusually high fees before and after a resignation. We interpret the higher than normal incumbent fees as an indication that resignation companies reflect unusual levels of audit effort or risk, which the incumbent auditor captures as additional fees. Eventually, however, the additional fees are insufficient, inducing the incumbent to resign. A fee premium by the successor auditor after resignation also supports this view.     

Non-audit services provided to audit clients,independence of mind and independence in appearance: latest evidence from large UK listed companies

This paper investigates whether the provision of non-audit services (NAS) to audit clients impairs auditor independence of mind and independence in appearance. The main contributions of this paper are in terms of its timeliness with respect to regulatory changes, the simultaneous examination of both forms of auditor independence and the methodological innovation whereby it uses a variable derived from the level of abnormal audit fees as a moderating variable in order to capture the direct impact of the NAS fee level on auditor independence as well as how its influence is moderated by the level of unexpected audit fees. Our results indicate that auditor independence of mind is compromised by the size of NAS fees, particularly for clients who pay below the level of expected audit fee. The stock market perceives that auditor independence is compromised by NAS fees but, at the same time, additional tests indicate that there are benefits that accrue from NAS and, in particular, the relation between return and non-discretionary net income is increasing in NAS fees. The balance of evidence suggests that the European Union is correct in undertaking some reform of the auditing market.     

Extreme CEO pay cuts and audit fees

This study investigates whether sudden and severe reductions in total CEO compensation affect auditor perceptions of risk. We argue that extreme CEO pay cuts can incentivize the CEO to manipulate the financial reports or make risky operational decisions in a desperate attempt to improve firm performance. This incentive, in turn, is likely to impact auditor assessments of audit risk and auditor business risk, leading to higher audit fees. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find evidence of a positive and highly significant association between extreme CEO pay cuts and audit fees. The results suggest that audit fees are 4.6% higher when there is an extreme CEO pay cut, which corresponds to an audit fee that is $111,458 higher for the average firm-year observation in our sample.     

Audit Fees, Non-Audit Fees and Auditor Going-Concern Reporting Decisions in the United Kingdom

The accounting profession has come under increased scrutiny over recent years about the growing number of non-audit fees received from audit clients and the possible negative impact of such fees on auditor independence. The argument advanced is that providing substantial amounts of non-audit services to clients may make it more likely that auditors concede to the wishes of the client management when difficult judgments are made. Such concerns are particularly salient in the case of reporting decisions related to going-concern uncertainties for financially stressed clients.
 This study empirically examines audit reports provided to financially stressed companies in the United Kingdom and the magnitude of audit and non-audit service fees paid to the company's auditors. We find that the magnitude of both audit fees and non-audit fees are significantly associated with the issuance of a going-concern modified audit opinion. In particular, financially stressed companies with high audit fees are more likely to receive a going-concern modified audit opinion, whereas companies with high non-audit fees are less likely to receive a going-concern modified audit opinion. Additional analyses indicate that the results are generally robust across alternative model and variable specifications. Overall, evidence supports the contention that high non-audit fees have a detrimental effect on going-concern reporting judgments for financially stressed U.K. companies.     

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.     

On the Relationship between Audit Tenure and Fees Paid to the Audit Firm and Audit Quality

Abstract

We investigate the impact of audit firm tenure, partner tenure, audit fees, fees for non-audit services and total fees on audit quality, as measured by discretionary accruals. Our sample consists of Spanish non-financial public companies for the years between 2006 and 2013. Results indicate that audit quality increases with audit firm tenure but decreases with partner tenure. Moreover, the level of fees paid to the audit firm seems to have a negative impact on audit quality, which is mainly driven by fees for audit services. In this regard, we do not observe any significant relationship between fees for non-audit services and audit quality. Our results also show that the negative relationship between either long partner tenures or high fees and audit quality does not occur when the tenure with the audit firm is long. Therefore, long audit firm tenures do not only seem to involve higher audit quality ‘per se’, but also moderate the negative effects of partner tenure and audit fees on audit quality. The results of this study, which are robust to several sensitivity checks, may be relevant for the current debate on auditor rotation and the joint provision of audit and non-audit services.     

Response to discussants'' comments: The demand for auditor reputation across international markets for audit services

Previous research has documented a positive relation between variation in audit fees across countries and specific macroeconomic factors such as a country's level of litigiousness and the level of required disclosure. Such studies have focused on the supply of auditor services using single-equation models. This study examines not only the supply of but also the demand for large-firm auditors across 20 different countries using the simultaneous-equations approach. This approach is used to account for the endogeneity between choice of auditor and audit fees. The results indicate an association between greater disclosure requirements and the choice of a large-firm auditor. They also indicate that increased litigation and regulation are associated with higher audit fees.     

Auditor specialization, perceived audit quality, and audit fees in the local government audit market

Prior governmental research implies a positive relation between auditor specialization and audit quality, but the effect of specialization on audit fees is mixed. However, no single governmental study investigates the effect of auditor specialization on both audit quality and audit fees. Also, prior studies focus on either large- or small audit firms and often employ indirect proxies for audit quality. We study the effects of auditor specialization on perceived audit quality and audit fees. Our data represent both Big 5 and smaller audit firms and include three market-based measures of specialization. We survey 241 Florida local government finance directors and find that specialization is positively associated with perceived audit quality but not with audit fees. We also find that Big 5 auditors, often used as a proxy for higher audit quality in prior research, are not uniformly associated with increased perceived audit quality but consistently charge higher audit fees. Our results confirm a relation between measures of audit firm specialization and audit quality and raise questions regarding audit firm size and audit quality in the municipal sector. Our findings suggest that engaging specialized auditors may be good policy for many local governments.