The Effects of Uncertainty and Disclosure on Auditors' Fair Value Materiality Decisions

Financial accounting standards increasingly require fair value measurements. I experimentally examine how uncertainty affects auditors’ adjustment decisions when evaluating fair values. I manipulate two types of uncertainty, input subjectivity and outcome imprecision, and one reporting choice, supplemental disclosure. I find that auditors are most likely to require adjustments when fair values contain both more input subjectivity and more outcome imprecision, but that this likelihood diminishes when clients supplement recognized fair values with additional disclosure. Thus, consistent with moral licensing, I find that auditors tolerate greater potential misstatement in the financial statements when clients provide disclosure, suggesting that the SEC's preference for supplemental disclosure may have the unintended consequence of affecting fair values recognized in the body of the financial statements. I also provide evidence that auditors determine adjustment size by comparing recorded fair value to the nearest bound, rather than the midpoint, of the auditors’ own range estimate, consistent with strict application of auditing standards.     

The Effects of Fraud Risk and Management Representation on Auditors' Hypothesis Generation

Hypothesis generation is considered to be critical to the effectiveness and efficiency of diagnostic processes in auditing. Using a between-subjects experimental design, this work examines the impact of fraud risk and the availability of a non-misstatement management explanation on auditors' hypothesis generation performance. The context is when managers undertake analytical procedures at the planning stage of the audit. The results indicate that auditors are sensitive to increased fraud risk by generating more fraud hypotheses, while the number of misstatement hypotheses generated is not affected by fraud risk. The availability of a non-misstatement management explanation was found not to interfere with auditors' hypothesis generation performance, but facilitated the generation of proportionately more misstatement and fraud hypotheses from the same transaction cycle as that indicated by the management explanation. Together, these findings provide some insights on the sensitivity of auditors' hypothesis generation to fraud risk and whether this sensitivity could be undermined by the availability of management representations.     

The Effects of Guidance Frequency and Guidance Goal on Managerial Decisions

We conduct an experiment to examine the effects of guidance frequency (frequent vs. infrequent) and guidance goal (accuracy vs. meet/beat vs. truthful) on managers’ operating decisions. We find that frequent guiders sacrifice total earnings for quarterly earnings predictability irrespective of their guidance goals. Furthermore, when guidance is infrequent, guiders with accuracy goals opt for quarterly earnings predictability over total earnings more often than do guiders with either meet/beat goals or truthful goals. These findings have implications for regulators and investors in terms of the unintended consequences of requesting frequent earnings guidance. Further, while managers may perceive that accuracy goals can help their firms establish forecasting and reporting reputations, we show that accuracy goals may result in dysfunctional internal managerial decisions, particularly when guidance is issued infrequently.     

The Form. Measurement and Management of Inflation Anticipation

通货膨胀是影响各国经济发展和社会稳定的重要问题,而通胀预期又是影响实际通货膨胀的重要因素。我国通货膨胀随着社会转型开始呈现周期性变化,对我国通货膨胀基于成本推动型、需求拉动型、结构型等等的研究也已经较多,但不容忽视的是,我国通货膨胀的惯性特征很强,通货膨胀的滞后效应十分明显,究其原因是通胀预期的作用。本文基于对通胀预期形成的认识,对其影响因素进行研究,然后通过实证分析,得到通胀预期形成的相关结论,最后对通货膨胀的管理提出政策建议。     

基于博弈论的法律责任与审计师定价策略

以完美贝叶斯均衡赛局模型,研究审计师的法律责任是否会影响审计师的初次审计定价策略。研究发现,若考虑审计师的法律责任,当初次审计合约的签约与前期审计服务质量无直接关联性时,审计定价策略会产生分离均衡;当初次审计合约的签约与前期审计服务质量有直接关联性时,会产生混同均衡。     

Auditors' perception of management: Determinants and consequences

An experiment was conducted to examine the determinants and consequences of auditors' perceptions of management. Based on the theory of correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965), the following hypotheses were formulated: (1) auditors are most likely to make a dispositional inference about management when a transaction deviates from expectations and is made under conditions of high choice; (2) auditors are more likely to make a dispositional inference about the management of a new client than that of a continuing client; and (3) dispositional inferences about management will affect auditors' subsequent judgments. The results support the first hypothesis. Contrary to the second hypothesis, subjects' dispositional inferences about management did not differ significantly between the continuing client and the new client conditions. Finally, the materiality threshold of auditors was found to be significantly associated with their inferences about management.     

事务所转制、审计师个人特征与会计稳健性

本文选用已转制事务所在转制前后各一年所审计客户公司为研究样本,在过去研究事务所转制基本效应的基础上,进一步考虑面对事务所转制带来的法律风险变化,不同特征审计师审计的公司,会计稳健性是否存在显著差异。研究发现:事务所转为特殊普通合伙制,客户公司会计稳健性普遍提高,但个人特征不同的审计师所审计客户公司的会计稳健性提高程度存在显著不同,具有本科或以上学历的审计师所审计客户公司的会计稳健性提高更加明显,而执业时间较长、年龄较大的审计师,其所审计客户公司的会计稳健性提高程度相对较弱。     

The Impact of Settlement Procedures on Day-of-the-week Effects: Evidence from the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange

Using daily data from 1983 to 1993 for the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange Composite Index (KLSI) we examine the day-of-the-week effect. Our initial findings indicate that there is a marginally significant negative Monday effect (in keeping with US studies) and a significant positive Wednesday and Thursday effect for the whole period. We consider a number of possible explanations for these results including the impact of: closed market effects ; the time zone hypothesis ; market size and price ; the January Effect ; and the possibility of mismeasured risk . However, we believe that the most likely cause of the seasonal effects documented between 1983 and 1993, can be traced to the pre-1990 settlement procedures on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange since we find that after this date nearly all of the seasonal variation in daily stock returns disappears. Thus we highlight in this paper the importance of considering the microstructure of financial markets in empirical tests of apparent market anomalies.     

粮食安全成本:理论模型的建立与实证分析

近年来,国家财政用于保证粮食安全的投放呈逐年上升的趋势,已使财政不堪重负,导致了政府财政赤字的出现。粮食安全的高成本投入对粮食安全真正起到多大作用,在未来时期政府应该如何降低成本来维系粮食安全水平不降低,这些问题的研究和解决具有一定的现实意义。     

司法解决行政争议中实质性标准的廓清

在行政争议实质性解决的理念下,能动司法不意味着司法万能。司法实践对实质性的判断主要体现在三个维度上： 通过合理性审查消灭不确定法律状态,基于保障权益和节约资源而变通诉讼程序,进入审判外协商调解与府院合作的解纷渠道。一方面,法院将确权判决、原告撤诉、诉讼程序不重启、协商调解等可视化结果视为实质化解行政争议;另一方面,实质化解行政争议在多数裁判文书中仅作为宣誓性表达。这造成实质性的形式化,泛化实质性标准,产生司法能动与谦抑、程序与实体、尊重当事人意志与司法介入之间的价值冲突。我国司法正义观介于纯粹过程正义和结果正义之间,追求解纷效率的同时,需避免司法负担过重或肆意逸脱至审判外渠道。鉴于此,司法解决行政争议中实质性标准应受限于司法实体裁判能力,理性识别权利保护的必要性,且不可将协商调解与府院合作等同于实质性的达成。     

论审计过程的逻辑牲

审计职业界正在针对我们的各类审计业务开发出越来越多的操作手册,目的是让不同审计组织的审计人员在从事同类审计业务时能够遵循统一的执业手册.     

外资保险公司进入中国的效应分析与政策选择

加入WTO以来,外资保险公司在中国保险市场加速扩张,以保费收入年均超过50%的速度高速增长.在中国这样新兴加转轨市场中以及外资保险公司进入的溢出效应初步实现的背景下,本文分析了外资保险在中国的经营状况和竞争策略,重新审视了外资保险公司进入对中国保险业发展带来的积极效应和新问题,并提出了在开放经济的视角下对外资保险机构的进入与发展应该实施怎样的制度安排.     

Scope of Auditors' Liability,Audit Quality,and Capital Investment

One of the fundamental issues in the discussion of auditors' liability is to whom auditors should be held liable for ordinary negligence under common law. Three judicial viewpoints prevail: the restrictive privity approach, the more liberal Restatement approach, and the most liberal foreseeability approach. To compare these three approaches from an efficiency perspective, this paper develops a model that features an owner-managed firm, an independent auditor, a continuum of unrelated lenders, and an impartial court. Double effort-incentive problems appear for the firm and the auditor. The firm has an additional incentive problem due to the sequential nature of its borrowing. This paper shows that the effort-incentive problem and the sequential borrowing problem of the firm render unambiguous improvements in audit effort/quality, capital investment, and social welfare as the judicial approach governing the scope of auditors' liability becomes more conservative.     

人民币升值预期下的外债风险分析

一国的外债特别是中长期外债,一方面能弥补该国资金不足,另一方面能引进先进的技术和管理经验,扩大其生产能力,增加就业。但过度的外债,特别是过多的短期外债会引发债务危机,并导致大量财富外流。目前我国短期外债已经占外债余额的39．8％,比25％的国际安全线高出了14个百分点,应采取有效措施预防潜在的债务风险。     

The Timing of Opening Trades and Pricing Errors

After demonstrating that a zero investment trading strategy that buys stocks with overnight returns below the market average and sells stocks with overnight returns above the market average earns more than 1% monthly profit, I demonstrate that this profit is greater for stocks that start trading more quickly than for other stocks. These results control for trading costs. The resulting pricing errors are a material portion of stock price volatility and suggest that a quick response to overnight information adds non‐information‐based stock volatility to stock prices.     

The Impact of Analysts' Forecast Errors and Forecast Revisions on Stock Prices

Abstract:  We present a comprehensive analysis of the association between stock returns, quarterly earnings forecast errors, and quarter-ahead and year-ahead earnings forecast revisions. We find that forecast errors and the two forecast revisions have significant effects on stock prices, indicating each conveys information content. Findings also show that the fourth quarter differs from other quarters—the relative importance of the forecast error (quarter-ahead forecast revision) is lower (higher). We also find a marked upward shift over time in the forecast error and forecast revision coefficients, consistent with the I/B/E/S database reflecting an improved quality of both earnings forecasts and actual earnings.