Responsiveness of Auditors to the Audit Risk Standards: Unique Evidence from Big 4 Audit Firms

We examine the effect of changes in audit risk standards on the conduct of financial statement audits in a European setting. We investigate this by analysing the audit hours and audit fees for clients of Big 4 audit firms in Finland in 1996 and 2010. Our results show that audit firms became more sensitive to clients’ business risk due to the introduction of the new audit risk standards, with more audit hours allocated to owner-managed companies in 2010 than in 1996, and fewer audit hours allocated to low-risk clients in 2010 than in 1996. Also, the labour mix in the audit team changed for owner-managed companies, with a greater work load carried by junior auditors in 2010 than in 1996. Regarding the price of audit, we find an increase in audit fees for clients with high business risk, while audit fees remained at roughly the same level for low-risk clients. These findings should be of interest to the auditing profession and those involved in the development of auditing regulations.     

我国审计定价影响因素的实证研究

审计定价与注册会计师的独立性和审计质量息息相关.通过运用2006年沪、深两市上市公司的实证数据对我国审计定价影响因素进行实证研究,结果表明:非审计费用未影响审计定价,董事会规模、董事会勤勉与独立性、事务所品牌、企业规模和子公司数目等直接影响审计定价.     

An Empirical Investigation of Determinants of Audit Reports in the UK

Prior studies of audit reporting in the UK only analyse either very small, private companies, or large listed companies. In addition, these studies focus on narrowly defined types of modified audit reports, respectively the 'small company' audit qualification, and going‐concern related modifications. In contrast, this paper employs a multinomial logit model to analyse the determinants of both going‐concern and non going‐concern related audit modifications, including modifications for disagreements and limitations on scope. Furthermore, this paper analyses reports over a wide range of both private and public (listed and non‐listed) companies. The determinants of audit reports are shown to differ between different types of audit modification. In addition, subsidiary companies hiring large auditors are significantly less likely to receive non going‐concern related modifications, whereas non‐subsidiary companies hiring large auditors are significantly more likely to receive going‐concern related modifications.     

审计意见的决定因素：来自中国上市公司的证据

利用中国上市公司和相应会计师事务所2001—2003年的综列数据,本文研究了审计意见和会计师事务所规模、上市公司的风险和盈余管理等因素之间的关系。本文发现有破产风险的、进行盈余管理的或小规模的上市公司更可能得到非标准审计意见。如果它们又是大会计师事务所的客户,则得到非标意见的概率更大。本文不支持合资会计师事务所的审计质量更高的结论。     

审计委员会与审计质量——来自中国A股市场的经验证据

本文以中国2004年—2005年期间获得无保留审计意见的A股上市公司为研究样本,采用截面Jones模型估计出的公司操纵性应计利润(盈余管理)的绝对值作为审计质量的衡量指标,考察了审计委员会与审计质量之间的关系。研究发现,在控制了"会计师事务所规模"、"公司是否面临退市风险"、"审计意见是否带强调事项"、"公司经营活动现金流"、"公司盈余数量"、"年度"等指标后,设立审计委员会的公司的盈余管理绝对值显著比未设立审计委员会的公司小,这说明审计委员会能够显著的提高审计质量。进一步研究发现:审计委员会的成立时间越长,审计质量越高;审计委员会在2005年的作用比2004年更加显著。     

事务所所有权规模对审计收费的影响及检验

根据中国2007~2011年全部A股上市公司的年报数据,从理论上分析了会计师事务所所有权规模对审计收费的影响并进行了实证检验。研究发现有限责任会计师事务所所有权规模与审计收费显著正相关,即随着事务所所有权规模的增大,审计收费也增大。研究同时发现,相对于私有产权上市公司,事务所对国有产权上市公司的盈余管理收取了更高的审计费用。     

Capital Structure Determinants in Real Estate Limited Partnerships

This paper models the capital structure decision facing partnerships and tests the implications using panel-data regression analysis for a sample of real estate limited partnerships. The model shows that if an optimal capital structure exists for non-taxed firms, it is a function of personal tax effects, costs of financial distress, and substitute tax shields. The empirical tests indicate a positive relationship between leverage and the proportion of real estate assets held, and a negative relationship between leverage and both growth rates and non-debt tax shields. Furthermore, the findings suggest that changes resulting from the Tax Reform Act of 1986 are positively related to partnership leverage.     

监管处罚中的“重师轻所”及其后果:经验证据

在中国证券市场中,监管者对审计师的行政处罚通常采取师所并罚的方式,但也存在重师轻所的情况。后一种做法是否合适,在业内始终存在较大争议,也缺乏相关的经验证据。笔者认为,与师所并罚的方式相比,重师轻所的做法并未对涉案会计师事务所的质量控制体系作出明确警示和惩戒,从而置身于该体系中的事务所负责人(主要施为主体)以及其他未受罚注册会计师(主要承责主体)的审计行为更不可能受到警示和震慑。对2003～2005年间的监管处罚案件的经验分析支持了笔者的观点,从而提供了重师轻所处罚方式具有负面后果的证据。     

Determinants and Value of Enterprise Risk Management: Empirical Evidence From the Literature

The development of an enterprise risk management (ERM) program enables companies to manage corporate risks in a holistic manner as opposed to the silo‐based perspective in traditional risk management frameworks. One main question in this regard is what factors drive the implementation of an ERM system in companies and whether ERM programs can actually create value once implemented. This article addresses these questions by conducting a comparative assessment of empirical evidence from the literature regarding the determinants of ERM and its value once implemented. In doing so we are able to illustrate differences in model specifications and the underlying data. Our literature study shows that particularly the company size and the level of institutional ownership are significantly positively related to the implementation of ERM in most empirical studies and, furthermore, that ERM generally has a (significant) positive impact on corporate value and performance (to a different extent and depending on the focus of the studies). However, geographic and/or industrial restrictions regarding the underlying data sets partly limit the generalization of the empirical results.     

审计任期与审计质量:来自中国证券市场的经验证据

本文以中国证券市场上2000年至2002年期间获得标准无保留审计意见的上市公司为样本,使用经过一定调整后的截面Jones模型估计出的公司操纵性应计利润的绝对值作为审计质量的衡量指标,考察了会计师事务所审计任期与审计质量之间的关系。研究发现,在控制了事务所变更、事务所特征、行业成长性、公司规模、经营业绩、资产负债率、上市年龄以及样本所在年度后,审计任期与公司操纵性应计利润的绝对值呈正U型关系,即审计任期与审计质量呈倒U型关系。进一步分析发现,当审计任期小于一定年份(约6年)时,审计任期的增加对审计质量具有正面影响,而当审计任期超过一定年份(约6年)时,审计任期的增加对审计质量具有负面影响。     

Evaluating the Work of Internal Audit: A Comparison of Standards and Empirical Evidence

Numerous changes have recently been proposed or made to audit standards providing guidance for external auditors' evaluations of internal audit work. This paper reports the results of a study to compare the UK's Accounting Practices Board Statement of Auditing Standard 500, first, with similar standards promulgated by international, Canadian and US societies, and second, with audit quality factors derived from practising internal auditors. The data for the latter comparison was obtained from a two-phase study that first generated a set of potential quality factors through intensive structured interviews with audit groups from six different and diverse organisations, and then obtained evaluations of these factors from a large sample of internal auditors worldwide. Results first indicate that there are strong similarities between the guidance provided by SAS 500 and that proposed or promulgated by the UK, international, Canadian and US audit groups. Furthermore, the guidance provided by these SASs for items to consider in evaluating the quality of internal audit work are largely in agreement with the factors determined by practising internal auditors. There are, however, several items listed in SAS 500 that are not considered useful by internal auditors and there are other factors considered crucial by internal auditors but not mentioned in the SASs.     

Optimal CEO Compensation with Search: Theory and Empirical Evidence

We integrate an agency problem into search theory to study executive compensation in a market equilibrium. A CEO can choose to stay or quit and search after privately observing an idiosyncratic shock to the firm. The market equilibrium endogenizes CEOs’ and firms’ outside options and captures contracting externalities. We show that the optimal pay‐to‐performance ratio is less than one even when the CEO is risk neutral. Moreover, the equilibrium pay‐to‐performance sensitivity depends positively on a firm's idiosyncratic risk and negatively on the systematic risk. Our empirical tests using executive compensation data confirm these results.     

审计市场结构与审计质量:来自中国证券市场的经验证据

本文以我国证券市场2004年~2005年的上市公司为研究样本,使用调整后的KS模型估计出的公司操纵性应计利润的绝对值作为审计质量的衡量指标,考察了审计市场结构和审计质量的关系。研究发现在控制了影响审计质量的相关变量之后,市场结构与审计质量存在以下关系:审计市场集中度与审计质量成正相关关系;市场的进入退出壁垒越高,审计质量越高;但审计师的行业专长不但没有提高审计质量,反而在一定程度上降低了审计质量;审计市场的强地域性与审计质量也没有明显的相关关系。     

Audit Reporting of Big 4 Versus Non-Big 4 Auditors: The Case of Ex-Andersen Clients

This paper examines audit reporting of Big 4 auditors versus non-Big 4 auditors for ex-Andersen clients and other clients. It suggests that ex-Andersen clients are more risky than other clients and are able to exert more influence than other clients on non-Big 4 auditors because they are larger in size than other non-Big 4 auditees. In addition, Big 4 auditors are more risk-averse and able to withstand clients' pressure than non-Big 4 auditors. The results show that Big 4 auditors are more likely than non-Big 4 auditors to issue going-concern opinions to ex-Andersen clients or restrict the level of discretionary accruals of those clients compared with other clients. Further, ex-Andersen clients of Big 4 auditors would have had a lower likelihood of receiving going-concern opinions or higher levels of discretionary accruals had reporting practices for other clients been applied. Ex-Andersen clients of non-Big 4 auditors would have had a higher likelihood of going-concern opinions or lower levels of discretionary accruals. Hence, the suggestion to reduce the Big 4 concentration in the audit market by allowing non-Big 4 firms a larger market share should be viewed prudently. Overall, these results are consistent with the suggestion that litigation risk and client pressure are important factors in audit reporting.     

“四大”的国际地位和中国审计市场结构优化

本文通过对世界最大40家会计师事务所和美国审计100强的数据分析,证明了近年来国际审计市场的趋势是集中度在降低和“四大”的寡占市场地位开始减弱,并分析了其中的原因。同时从理论上探讨了审计市场结构优化的尺度应是审计市场集中度与股票市场集中度两者相适应。这一结论的政策意义在于表明我国审计市场结构的优化需通过扶助本土会计师事务所在整体上规模扩大和竞争力增强,及遏止审计市场集中速度加快。     

公司财务报告质量的决定因素—来自我国深沪上市公司的经验证据

结合我国新兴加转轨的制度背景,运用Lang&Lundbolm(1993)分析框架探讨了影响我国上市公司财务报告质量的因素;以未来现金流量的可预测性定义财务报告质量;运用我国上市公司数据实证发现,资产负债率越低,资本密度越高,成长性越低,股权结构越分散,亏损概率越高,未来现金流量可预测性越强,公司财务报告质量相应越高.     

Determinants of Bilateral Effective Tax Rates: Empirical Evidence from OECD Countries*

This paper identifies the relevant determinants of a company's effective tax burden. Thereby, we account for bilateral aspects of corporate taxation by calculating bilateral effective tax rates as proposed by Devereux and Griffith (1999 and 2003). The empirical evidence of a large panel of nearly 8,000 bilateral effective tax rates within the OECD suggests that country size is an important determinant of the effective tax rate. In line with the literature, bilateral tax rates with small host countries exhibit a smaller overall effective tax rate, despite the fact that larger countries are more likely to reduce the tax burden by means of tax treaties at the bilateral level. Further, we find that geographically remote countries impose higher taxes, whereas economic integration tends to reduce the extent of the bilateral effective tax burden.     

International Evidence on the Determinants of Private Saving

A broad set of possible determinants of private saving behavioris examined using data for a large sample of industrial anddeveloping countries. Both time-series and crosssectional estimatesare obtained. Results suggest that there is a partial offseton private saving of changes in public saving and (for developingcountries) in foreign saving, that demographics and growth areimportant determinants of private saving rates, and that interestrates and terms of trade have positive, but less robust, effects.Increases in per capita gross domestic product seem to increasesaving at low income levels (relative to the United States)but decrease it at higher ones.     

基于数据仓库技术的大数据审计方法研究

近年来,大数据技术的发展和广泛应用给国家经济社会带来了深刻的影响,也给审计工作带来了新的机遇.2014年《国务院关于加强审计工作的意见》明确指出"探索在审计实践中运用大数据技术的途径,加大数据综合利用力度,提高运用信息化技术查核问题、评价判断、宏观分析的能力".在此背景下,学术界和实务界关于大数据技术在审计工作中的应用...