Fairness perception of ancillary fees: Industry differences and communication strategies

This study examines fairness perception of ancillary fees across different industries, and ways to communicate ancillary fees in a way that reduces customers' feeling that they are being unfairly treated. Through surveys and consumer experiments, we show that consumers’ perception of fairness decreases as the level of ancillary fees increases, with differences across industries. Also, when the customer is given a cue that the ancillary fees are necessary for low base prices, fairness perception increases, explained by the “dual entitlement” concept. Another effective communication strategy is early disclosure, as opposed to late disclosure which decreases fairness perception and willingness to recommend.     

Client Importance and Audit Quality at the Individual Audit Partner,Office, and Firm Levels

We investigate whether audit partner level data provides a more powerful measure than office or firm level measures of client importance. We find that the likelihood of issuing a going-concern opinion (any and first-time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of audit fees to the total audit fees received by audit partners from all their clients. We also find that the likelihood of issuing a going-concern opinion (any and first-time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of non-audit services fees from a client to total non-audit service fees, and the proportion of total audit and non-audit service fees from a client to total fees from all their clients at the office and firm levels. Our findings provide evidence to regulators, audit clients, and stakeholders that audit partners do not succumb to pressure from economically more important clients as audit quality has a positive association with client importance.     

Financing the sustainable management of Rwanda's protected areas

Rwanda's Nyungwe National Park is a biodiversity hotspot with the most endemic species in the ecoregion and the highest number of threatened species internationally. Nyungwe supplies critical ecosystem services to the Rwandan population including water provisioning and tourism services. Tourism in the Park has strong potential for financing enhanced visitor experiences and the sustainable management of the Park. This paper explores quantitatively the economic impacts of adjustment in Park visitation fees and tourism demand as a source of revenues to improve Park tourism opportunities and ongoing operations and maintenance. The methods developed in this paper are novel in integrating the results of stated preference techniques with a regional computable general equilibrium modelling approach to capture multisectoral, direct, indirect and induced impacts. Such methods have strong potential for assessing revenue generation alternatives in other contexts where park managers are faced with the need to generate additional revenue for sustainable park management while facing diminishing budget allocations. Results of this analysis demonstrate that adjustment of Park fees has a relatively small impact on the regional economy and well-being when compared with a strategy aimed at generating increased tourism demand through investment in improving the visitor experience at Nyungwe National Park.     

频繁并购重组与异常审计收费

以2012—2017年A股上市公司为样本，采用异常审计费用衡量审计师对上市公司频繁并购重组的风险溢价，探究企业频繁并购重组与审计师风险溢价收费的关系，研究发现企业频繁并购重组会导致审计师风险溢价提高。从商誉和盈余管理角度探究其路径机制发现，商誉和真实盈余管理是频繁并购重组导致更高审计师风险溢价两个重要中介变量，而应计盈余管理并没有发挥中介作用，即频繁并购重组企业操纵利润的手段倾向于采用真实盈余管理，而非应计盈余管理。     

Option implied volatilities and the cost of issuing equity

The structure of a firm-commitment Seasoned Equity Offering (SEO) resembles a put-option underwritten by an investment bank syndicate (Smith, 1977). Employing implied volatilities from issuers’ stock options as a direct forward-looking measure, this paper examines the impact of expected price risk around SEO issue dates on the direct cost of issuing equity. Using a comprehensive sample of 1208 SEOs between 1996 and 2009, we find issuers with higher option implied volatilities raise less external equity capital and pay higher investment bank fees in the stock market, ceteris paribus. The effect of implied volatility on the investment bank fees is stronger for larger issuers with lower pre-SEO abnormal realized stock volatilities, and for SEOs with higher expected price pressures around issue dates. These relationships are robust to adjustments for correlations among control variables, sample selection bias and also simultaneous determination of offer size and SEO fees.     

公司诉讼风险对审计决策的影响研究——基于异常审计费用和审计意见的证据

近年来上市公司诉讼风险不断攀升，对审计师决策行为的影响日益凸显。基于这一背景，系统探讨公司诉讼风险对审计决策的影响，分别研究公司诉讼风险对审计费用决策和审计意见决策的影响，并考察在诉讼风险冲击下审计费用决策和审计意见决策间的关系,同时结合我国制度背景，研究法律环境差异性对两种决策之间关系的影响。研究发现：公司诉讼风险越高，审计师收取正向异常审计费用的概率越高，出具非标准审计意见的可能性越大；审计费用策略和审计意见策略之间存在替代关系，即审计师倾向于在出具标准审计意见时收取正向异常审计费用作为风险补偿。进一步研究表明，在外部法律环境薄弱地区，审计费用决策和审计意见决策之间的替代关系更加显著。研究结论有助于合理解释和评价审计师的决策行为，对监管机构规范审计师的行为有着一定的启示意义。     

异常审计费用、审计质量与IPO定价——基于A股市场的分析

以A股市场2006—2012年IPO公司为研究对象，探讨异常审计费用与审计质量的相关性及其在IPO定价中的作用。结果发现：对全样本，异常审计费用与IPO抑价水平显著负相关，与可操纵性应计利润的绝对值和股票上市后的长期市场表现不相关；当考虑异常审计费用的方向时，正的异常审计费用与IPO抑价水平、可操纵性应计利润的绝对值显著负相关，与股票上市后的长期市场表现显著正相关，而负的异常审计费用与三者的相关性均不显著。这表明作为会计师事务所努力程度的体现，正的异常审计费用不会损害审计质量，相反在一定程度上能提升审计质量。因此，监管部门应更多地关注审计收费不足所存在的风险。     

定额结算下保险医疗费用支付制度安排

医疗保险机构与医院实行定额结算后,医院可通过分科定额结算办法将价格风险下移给科室,促使科室主动控费。而这种制度下,科室将通过牺牲患者利益实现自身效用;若医院按按实结算办法与科室结算医疗费用,则可在一定程度上解决上述问题。本文将针对按实结算办法建立数学模型,确定科室进行合理医疗的费用区间,并通过此模型说明按实结算下,科室通过均衡医患博弈,可在同时保证医院与患者双方利益的基础上有效地控制医疗费用。     

声誉激励、财务重述与审计费用

选取2001—2016年深沪两市主板上市公司为研究样本,实证检验财务重述对审计费用的影响。结果表明：财务重述与审计费用显著正相关,发生财务重述的公司审计费用显著高于没有财务重述的公司;发生财务重述的公司具有变更事务所和购买审计意见的动机倾向,行业竞争激烈加剧了事务所间的恶意竞争,事务所有可能蓄意降低审计费用招揽有财务重述的低端公司客户;由于声誉激励效应,声誉良好的大规模事务所对财务重述的公司所收取的审计费用显著升高,形成事务所竞争的“马太效应”。     

The effect of general counsel prominence on the pricing of audit services

We investigate the effect of corporate general counsel (GC) ascension to the senior management team on the pricing of audit services. Prior research suggests that the GC position may have a significant influence in setting the tone at the top by promoting corporate integrity, ethics, and serving as a governance and monitoring mechanism, but also recognizes that prominent GCs may face ethical dilemmas, causing them to disregard professional responsibilities to curry the favor of the CEO and other executives. Using audit fees to proxy for audit engagement risk, we find a negative association between GC ascension to top management and audit fees. We investigate the mechanisms behind this relation and find GC ascension is associated with a reduction in both default risk and financial misstatement risk, which supports auditors’ perceived reduction in client business risk and audit risk, respectively.