Does the severity of a client’s negative environmental,social and governance reputation affect audit effort and audit quality?

In recent years, investors have begun to value companies’ reputations through their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. ESG risk can affect business processes and controls and can heighten financial risk and threaten a firm’s survival. This study examines whether and how the severity of media coverage of a firm’s negative ESG issues (tainted ESG reputation) is associated with audit effort and audit quality. I find that auditors manage the higher expected engagement risk conveyed by tainted ESG reputation by applying higher audit effort. Next, I observe that the increased effort is associated with auditors likely detecting and requiring adjustments for material misstatements and that tainted ESG reputation is associated with fewer misstatements (i.e., reduces poor audit quality). The association between tainted ESG reputation and audit quality is driven primarily by increased audit report lag, not by increased audit fees. Further, I find that tainted ESG reputation is positively associated with audit effort and reduces poor audit quality for up to three years. The results also show that the audit effort and audit quality effect vary across the three components of ESG.     

The effects of disclosure type and audit committee expertise on Chief Audit Executives’ tolerance for financial misstatements

This study involves an experiment where 73 Chief Audit Executives and deputy Chief Audit Executives determine the amount of adjustment required to correct a misstatement. We manipulate the financial reporting location of the misstatement (recognized vs. disclosed) and the level of audit committee expertise (high vs. low). The results indicate that financial reporting location has significant effects on internal auditors’ decisions to correct misstatements. Specifically, internal auditors are more willing to waive disclosed misstatements relative to recognized misstatements. Contrary to expectations, the results do not indicate that increased audit committee expertise and associated increases in audit committee members’ perceived powers cause internal auditors to be less willing to waive misstatements.     

Accounting misstatements following lawsuits against auditors

This study investigates whether an auditor's experience of litigation in the recent past affects subsequent financial reporting quality. At the audit firm level, we find accounting misstatements occur significantly less (more) often after audit firms are sued (not sued). At the audit office level, the negative association between past litigation and future misstatements is stronger for offices who were directly implicated in the litigation than for the non-accused offices of sued audit firms. Therefore, the litigation experiences of both audit firms and audit offices are incrementally significant predictors of future financial reporting quality.     

The SOX 404 control audit and the effectiveness of additional audit effort in lowering the risk of financial misstatements

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We examine the effectiveness of additional audit effort in lowering the risk of financial misstatements for companies with internal control material...     

金融服务实体经济的效率及影响因素研究 ——基于商业银行资产负债的实证分析

本文首先深入分析了商业银行的资产负债管理行为,构建商业银行追求利润的资产负债管理模型,从理论上分析出商业银行将资产配置到实体经济领域的影响因素。在此基础上,从金融监管的角度出发,将商业银行的资产负债项目进一步分类为杠杆类、通道类,利用25家商业银行2009到2018年的面板数据,实证分析针对商业银行的杠杆类、通道类资产负债的监管,对金融支持实体经济力度、价格的影响效果。结果显示：银行支持实体经济力度方面,银行的杠杆率对银行支持实体经济力度有显著正向效果,但是资金通道长度对银行支持实体经济力度的影响并不显著;银行支持实体经济的资金价格方面,杠杆率对银行资金价格的影响并不显著,但是通道长度则会显著增加资金成本;商业银行的国有、股份制、城商行性质对银行支持实体经济力度的影响也不显著,但是同等条件下,商业银行的国有性质会显著降低资金价格水平。     

SpinalHeal Ltd.: Planning the Financial Statement Audit

This instructional audit case places the student in the role of an audit manager and requires preparation of an audit planning memo that addresses significant risks at SpinalHeal Ltd.—a private Canadian company, with international operations, that develops and distributes medical implants for spinal surgery. This year's audit is particularly challenging. There appear to be significant control deficiencies and potential noncompliance with laws and regulations, as well as several complex accounting issues (revenue recognition, intangible assets, and contingent liabilities) which must be addressed. In addition to drafting the planning memo, the audit manager must resolve how to deal with a partner request and prepare a memo to the client that explains the financial reporting implications of crowdfunding.     

Auditors' Response to Political Connections and Cronyism in Malaysia

This paper extends the literature on the role of political economy in financial reporting and auditing by testing two hypotheses. The first hypothesis predicts that there will be a greater increase in audit effort and audit fees for Malaysian firms with political connections, as a result of the Asian financial crisis, than for non‐politically connected firms because these firms have a higher risk of financial misstatements. The second hypothesis predicts that the audit fees of politically connected firms will decline when capital controls are introduced by the government as a ploy to financially assist politically connected firms to rebound from the crisis, and thus reduces the risk of financial misstatements. The results show that there is a greater increase in audit fees for firms with political connections than for non‐politically connected firms as a result of the Asian financial crisis. However, there is a decline in audit fees for politically connected firms after the capital controls are implemented.     

An Empirical Investigation of the Interface Between Internal and External Auditors

Professional standards place specific responsibilities on auditors for the discovery of material mis-statements in reports of corporate financial performance. Certain factors have been shown to increase the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting. One warning sign is the potentially pervasive effect of a weak internal control environment consistent with a weak internal audit group. This study investigates the impact of internal audit department quality differences on auditors ‘willingness to place reliance on the work performed by internal auditors. The study also gives consideration to auditors’ recent experiences with material errors and irregularities and examines the influence of two previously untested individual auditor differences on audit judgment decisions: (1) conflict management style and (2) perception of internal/external auditor communication barriers. The results indicate that auditors attend to internal audit department quality differences and that individual auditor differences exhibit significant influence over auditor judgments. Implications for audit practice are considered and directions for future research are suggested.     

Does Opinion Shopping Impair Auditor Independence and Audit Quality?

This study investigates how companies' threats to dismiss auditors and their engagement in opinion shopping influence auditor independence and audit quality, which in turn affect misstatements in financial statements. It also examines how outsiders' reactions to auditor switching influence opinion shopping. The results indicate that neither the predecessor auditor's nor the successor auditor's independence is compromised by dismissal threats and opinion shopping. Further, the successor auditor's audit quality exceeds the predecessor auditor's audit quality. In addition, auditor switching decreases potential understatements and increases potential overstatements in financial statements, and the capital market's and the successor auditor's reactions to auditor switching reduce the benefits of opinion shopping to companies. Additionally, the study sheds some light on the potential effects of both the Sarbanes‐Oxley's restriction on non‐audit services and mandatory auditor rotation or retention. The paper also derives a rich set of empirical implications.     

Trust and Financial Reporting Quality

Using unique survey data from Great Place to Work® Institute, we investigate the association of intraorganizational trust (i.e., employees’ trust in management) with three aspects of financial reporting: accruals quality, misstatements, and internal control quality. We find that trust is associated with better accrual quality, lower likelihood of financial statement misstatements, and lower likelihood of internal control material weakness disclosures. However, these effects are not uniform across all companies. Consistent with trust improving financial reporting quality through improved information production and information sharing, we find that trust is significantly associated with financial reporting quality in relatively decentralized firms, but not in firms that are relatively centralized. Our results are robust to several analyses that attempt to control for potential alternative explanations.     

Experimental evidence on the effect of earnings targets on managers' estimates in the financial statements

This paper reports on an experiment designed to provide evidence on whether external earnings targets, such as those imposed by analysts, influence managers' judgments about (and the related accuracy of) the value of assets/liabilities reported in the financial statements. Data from the experiment indicate that higher earnings targets result in managers reporting higher estimates of profitability/asset values, but also produce larger errors in estimating those amounts. The biased estimates and related errors are a result of managers being overly optimistic about their ability to generate outcomes that fully support their estimates. In addition, data indicate that managers, over-time, learn to make better estimates, but the relation between targets, estimates, and estimation errors persists. All of this occurred in a setting in which there were financial incentives to produce the most accurate estimates possible—nothing was to be gained by deliberately biasing estimates. This suggests that the earnings targets affected managers' judgment about amounts to be reported in the financial statements, and led to sub-conscious biases that produced results causing managers' estimates to be erroneously correlated with external earnings targets.     

The Impact of Disclosures of Internal Control Weaknesses and Remediations on Investors' Perceptions of Earnings Quality

We hypothesize and find that firms making SOX‐mandated disclosures of material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting (ICOFR) exhibit lower investor‐perceived earnings quality (IPEQ) than nondisclosers. We measure IPEQ using e‐loading, a market‐returns–based representation of earnings quality developed by Ecker, Francis, Kim, Olsson, and Schipper (2006). Firms do not exhibit decreases in IPEQ after initially disclosing material weaknesses. This is consistent with investors having anticipated ICOFR strength based on observable firm characteristics. However, firms exhibit increases in IPEQ after receiving their first clean audit reports that confirm the remediation of previously disclosed weaknesses. This indicates that, although investors do not find initial weakness disclosures to be incrementally informative, SOX motivates firms to remediate weak controls and provides a venue for credible remediation disclosures, thus enhancing investors' perception of financial reporting reliability. These findings are consistent with the existence of regulatory benefits associated with SOX's internal control disclosure and audit requirements.     

Changes in audit effort and changes in auditors’ disclosures of risks of material misstatement

This paper investigates whether auditors' year-to-year modification to risks of material misstatements (RMMs) in extended auditors' reports (EARs) are associated with changes in underlying audit effort, as proxied by changes in audit fees. We examine the dynamics of RMMs over time in terms of adding or dropping specific RMMs. Our main results show that, on average, audit fees increase more from the previous year's fees when more RMMs are added to the current year's EAR. This increase is partially offset by dropping RMMs that were disclosed in the previous year, but changes in audit fees are not significantly affected by dropping RMMs without adding new RMMs. Further analysis suggests the effect of added RMMs is attributable to “new” RMMs originating with the auditor and that added RMMs that were previously known, based on related disclosures in the prior year's audit committee report, do not significantly impact on changes in audit fees. Overall, our results suggest that changes in the choice of RMMs included in EARs reflect changes in underlying audit effort.     

Liability taxes,risk, and the cost of banking crises

This study investigates the effects on risk and financial stability of the taxes on bank liabilities introduced across European countries after the global financial crisis. Using a difference-in-differences setup, we show that banks responded to the implementation of liability taxes by reducing their interbank exposure, and by increasing both equity, at least in the short term, and the risk weight of their assets. When we consider these adjustments in a microsimulation model for bank portfolio losses, we find that liability taxes reduce risk in the banking sector and could therefore decrease the cost of crises.     

External auditors' evaluation of the internal audit function: An empirical investigation

Evaluation of the strength of the client's internal audit function by the external auditor (EA) has taken on increased significance due to stronger regulation around the evaluation of internal controls after SOX (2002). However, research examining how this evaluation occurs in practice is mixed and inconclusive. In this study, we examine empirically whether the Desai et al. (2010) theoretical model is reflective of how auditors make judgments about the strength of their client's internal audit function in practice. Specifically, we present external auditors with evidence about internal auditor work performance, competence and objectivity in a manner consistent with the structure of evidence evaluation implied by the Desai et al. (2010) model. We then compare the auditors' actual strength judgments to the strength levels predicted by the model and evaluate similarities and differences. Results indicate that no one factor dominates the strength judgment in all cases. In addition, EAs do not weigh negative evidence as heavily as does the model. When the evidence about the three factors is conflicting, external auditors have difficulty incorporating them in a consistent way into the calculation of their overall strength judgment. Finally, we find results consistent with prior research indicating auditors tend to be more sensitive to negative than positive evidence. Also, it is harder to move auditors' beliefs away from a negative position with positive evidence than to move those beliefs away from a positive position with negative evidence. Results suggest that additional training and use of a decision aid structured according to the Desai et al. (2010) model would be especially useful when evidence about internal auditors' work performance, competence and objectivity is conflicting.     

Internal control audits: Judges' perceptions of the credibility of the financial reporting process and likely auditor liability

This paper reports the results of a study in which fifty-seven sitting United States judges participated in a behavioral experiment to assess the perceived credibility of the financial reporting process and the legal risk auditors bear under conditions where they provide an internal control audit report (vs. no report) under two corporate governance environments. We find that participating judges believe internal control audits provide enhanced assurance that intentional misstatements do not exist and also serve to provide elevated protection to the public, but only under conditions of a strong corporate governance environment beyond current regulatory requirements. We also find that, after being informed of an undetected material fraud, judges who currently have high expectations of the auditing profession find auditors more liable when an internal control audit report has been issued (as compared to when no such report has been issued).     

Chief financial officer demographic characteristics and fraudulent financial reporting in China

We investigate whether management's cognitions, values and perceptions are associated with fraud for 18 863 firm‐years for Chinese listed firms from 2000 to 2014. Demographic characteristics of the chief financial officer (CFO) are used as proxies for management's cognitions, values and perceptions. We find that fraudulent financial reporting is higher when CFOs are younger, male, and have lower education backgrounds. An analysis of inflated earnings, fictitious assets, material omissions and other material misstatements provide similar results, with the exception that CFOs with higher education levels are associated with more inflated earnings.     

Audit Partners’ Role in Material Misstatement Resolution: Survey and Interview Evidence

Auditors are expected to identify and resolve material misstatements (MMs) in management's financial statements. However, beyond the audit opinion, the audit process is opaque. To address this, we independently survey 462 audit partners and interview 24 audit partners, CFOs, and audit committee members on how partners assess and address MM risk, resolve MMs, and the consequences of MMs. Partners identify MMs in approximately 9% (15%) of public (private) engagements and use qualitative factors to waive apparent MMs. Loan covenant and going-concern issues increase MM risk more than earnings benchmark issues. Partners point to a variety of both auditor and client factors as threats to audit effectiveness. Partners often rely on rapport with management and involve the national office and audit committee in resolving MMs. Partner incentives around restatements are context specific. Our results provide new insights into the auditor's role in financial reporting that are relevant to academics, practitioners, and regulators.     

Corporate governance,SFAS 157 and cost of equity capital: evidence from US financial institutions

This study examines the association between fair value measurements and the cost of equity capital under different fair value valuation methods, and assesses the impact of corporate governance on this relationship for US financial firms. We find that firms’ cost of equity capital is negatively associated with more verifiable fair value assets and positively related to less verifiable fair value assets. Furthermore, the positive association between less verifiable fair value assets and the cost of equity capital is mitigated under better corporate governance. The differential impact between more and less verifiable assets becomes smaller for firms with stronger governance. Our findings contribute to the ongoing debate on fair value regulation by investigating the economic consequences of adopting Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 157, Fair Value Measurements (SFAS 157) and the importance of audit committee financial expertise on fair value reporting. We also provide evidence on the importance of board independence, internal control strength, auditor industry specialists, and audit committee financial experts in fair value reporting.