论近代中国独立型审计制度及其历史启示

审计独立是近代中国审计立法和审计制度构建的主要原则,但近代中国的审计制度并未真正实现独立。清末新政筹设独立审计机关是为牵制内阁、巩固皇权;民国北京政府时期的审计处隶属于行政机关,此后的审计院为大总统控制,皆非独立;国民政府时期,审计的独立性有所加强,但在国民党独裁专政之下,审计机关的独立性相对有限。近代中国独立型审计制度及其实践表明,审计制度效能的发挥需要良好政治体制的支撑以及完备财政制度的配合,应赋予审计机关强有力的监督手段,并给予审计人员以特殊的职务保障。     

Independent and joint effects of audit partner tenure and non-audit fees on audit quality

We examine the individual and joint effects of auditors’ non-audit services (NAS)/abnormal NAS fees and length of audit partner tenure on audit quality. Our results raise questions about the ‘one size fits all’ approach imposed by the current audit partner rotation requirement in Australia as a result of (1) a learning differentiation that we observe between Big 4 and non-Big 4 auditors and (2) higher discretionary accruals associated with non-Big 4 auditors. We find abnormal NAS fees to have a positive association with both absolute and positive (income-increasing) values of discretionary accruals for firms with short audit partner tenure. NAS/abnormal NAS fees are also negatively associated with the issuance of going concern opinions to financially distressed firms when partner tenure is short. In terms of policy implications, regulators are able to gauge the efficacy of the CLERP 9 reforms which currently impose a five year mandatory audit partner rotation requirement.     

Are corporate governance attributes associated with accounting conservatism?

This article investigates the association between the board of directors, the audit committee and the external auditor (as well as an aggregate governance index) and the extent of conservatism evident in Australian firms’ financial reporting. Overall, the results provide only weak evidence that firms with certain governance characteristics report more conservatively. Evidence of any such link is restricted to measures of board composition and leadership, and even then the results are sensitive to the method used to measure the extent of conservatism in financial reporting.     

中央银行独立性与资产负债管理

金融危机后，各同中央银行的独立性和资产负债管理引起专家学者的重视。中央银行的独立性影响其调控经济的能力，不同独立性下的经济调控反映在资产负债表上就是各具特色的资产负债管理。本文分别研究了美联储、日本银行和中国人民银行的独立性和资产负债管理，以期对我国中央银行的独立性和资产负债管理提供有益借鉴。     

The effects of employee stock option plans on operating performance in Chinese firms

As a part of the ongoing liberalization of the marketplace, Chinese regulators adopted the guideline called “Regulation of Equity Incentive Plans (trial)” to allow firms to provide employee incentives through employee stock option plans. Firms began initiating the plans in 2006. We investigate the impact of these plans on firm performance by comparing option-award firms with similar non-award matching firms. The change in ROE for the option-award firms is significantly higher than the matching firms. This is primarily due to their performance holding up better during the global financial crisis while the matching firms’ performance deteriorates. The stock price of these firms shows a positive reaction to the announcement, but no long-term abnormal returns. The better ROE performance for option-award firms is strong for subsets of the sample that are likely to benefit more from incentivized employees; specifically, privately owned firms, firms with higher board independence, and smaller firms. After various robustness tests, we conclude that the higher performance comes from the employee incentives, rather than earnings manipulation, a replacement of cash compensation, a binding of employees to executives, or gaming vesting periods.     

Dynamic central bank independence indices and inflation rate: A new empirical exploration

It has been argued that economies with more independent central banks experience lower inflation over time. In this paper we show that this relationship is sensitive to the methodology through which central bank independence indices are constructed. We stress the importance of employing dynamic central bank independence indices in two ways. First, we perform unit root tests with structural breaks to verify if the implementation of central bank reforms represents a structural break for the inflation rate dynamics. Second, we implement a panel data analysis.We find evidence that legislative reforms that modify the degree of independence of a central bank have a strong impact on the inflation rate dynamics. Moreover, underlying the importance of employing dynamic central bank independence indices, we confirm the negative relationship between the latter and inflation for a sample of 10 OECD countries.     

Oman's monetary policy transmission process under the fixed peg: some empirical puzzles

This paper highlights that an open economy, like Oman, could often enjoy partial monetary policy independence despite operating with a fixed peg, which may appear as a clear violation of the ‘macroeconomic trilemma'. While explaining the country-specific factors that create the scope for partial monetary policy independence, the paper underscores that for meaningful use of this partial monetary policy independence to attain domestic goals of inflation and output, the transmission mechanism of monetary policy must work effectively. Empirical analyses presented in this paper for Oman, however, suggest the presence of not only the ‘interest rate puzzle’ but also the ‘IS puzzle’ and the ‘Phillips curve puzzle’, which together signal the presence of significant transmission weaknesses. The paper, thus, concludes that costs stemming from loss of any monetary policy independence because of the fixed peg may not be very significant for Oman, and hence, any alternative exchange rate regime cannot be viewed as appropriate just on the grounds that an alternative regime could deliver greater monetary policy independence.     

浅谈企业内部审计

企业内部审计是审计体系中重要组成部分，是国家审计的基础。要加强企业内部审计，充分认识内部审计的独立性、广泛性、科学性。企业内部审计的第一位任务是效益审计。     

A New Index of Independence of 12 European National Central Banks

Abstract

Many countries have recently strengthened the autonomy of their central banks in the effort to protect central bankers from government influences. This article reviews and extends the relevant literature to propose a new ranking of central bank independence in contrast to those originated by Bade and Parking, and Cukierman. The analysis shows a bivariate relationship between independence and inflation rates in 12 European Union countries in the EMS era. However, neither inflation nor its standard deviation had any statistical significance effect on real GDP growth. The procedure reveals that findings are, sometimes, index-specific.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

The system for monitoring, regulating and reporting on the way in which UK government ministers make appointments to the boards of public bodies is a relatively neglected area of public management. A decade after the establishment of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA), little attention has been paid by academics to the functioning of this agent of accountability (a particularly British device), despite the importance of transparency and accountability for the new public management and modernization. This article seeks to examine the key issues surrounding the Commissioners for Public Appointments as agents of accountability, by examining the tensions in the relationship between OCPA and the executive, variations in the governance arrangements for the Commissioners across the devolved polity and the key findings and recommendations of a number of official reports, while locating these issues in the context of current debates about modernization and ‘representativeness’ in public bodies.