XBRL财务报告审计模型及实现机制:一种框架研究

本文探讨了可扩展商业报告语言(eXtensible Business Reporting Language,以下简称XBRL)财务报告和传统财务报告并存环境下和XBRL财务报告替代传统报告环境下的审计框架模型以及应对机制。本文认为在二者并存环境下,审计人员的基本职责是确定被审计单位管理层对XBRL财务报告中商业事实、元素映射和元素拓展三个层次的认定是否恰当;在替代环境下,创建审计信息分类标准是XBRL财务报告审计得以高效率、低风险实施的保证机制;审计工作底稿将审计目标、审计程序和审计认定三位一体地结合起来,以审计人员熟悉的审计工作底稿来组织和构造审计分类标准更可行、更易用。     

Financial Reporting Practices of China's Listed Firms

The long‐term success of financial markets depends on the widespread availability of reasonably detailed and reliable financial information. Individual investors depend critically upon companies' regulatory filings and voluntary disclosures to assess their long‐run risks, payoffs, and, ultimately, their intrinsic values. However, a recent string of accounting frauds involving Chinese firms listed on overseas markets has drawn attention to the accounting and governance risks associated with investing in Chinese firms. This article provides a brief overview of the information environment of Chinese capital markets and the primary forces that affect the incentives of Chinese listed companies to provide timely and accurate financial reports. The evidence reviewed here indicates that the adoption of world‐class standards and regulation, although necessary, is not sufficient to generate incentives for transparency. The long‐term health of China's capital markets will also depend upon other reforms that are designed to accomplish the following: (1) improve the protection of investor rights through an effective, independent judiciary court system that promotes civil lawsuits, and through credible regulatory enforcement; (2) strengthen market development activity, especially with respect to foreign investors; and (3) limit political rent‐seeking behavior and deter politicized business decisions, especially in China's state‐owned enterprises. Together, such reforms have the potential to improve corporate governance in China and better align the incentives of the state and majority shareholders with those of minority shareholders, while increasing the ability of accounting to serve a contracting function and the demand for timely information for valuation purposes.     

Foreign Institutional Ownership and the Global Convergence of Financial Reporting Practices

This paper investigates whether foreign institutional investors affect the global convergence of financial reporting practices. Using several measures of reporting convergence, we show that U.S. institutional ownership is positively associated with subsequent changes in emerging market firms’ accounting comparability to their U.S. industry peers. We identify this association using an instrumental variable approach that exploits exogenous variation in U.S. institutional investment generated by the JGTRRA Act of 2003. Further, we provide evidence of a specific mechanism—the switch to a Big Four audit firm—through which U.S. institutional investors affect reporting convergence. Finally, we show that, for emerging market firms, an increase in comparability to U.S. firms is associated with an improvement in the properties of foreign analysts’ forecasts.     

Advances in the Financial Reporting of Mexican Banks: An Evaluation of Post-Devaluation Reporting Practices

In 1994, Mexico underwent a severe peso devaluation. Thereafter, the country’s financial system experienced severe financial stress as loan defaults forced the government to undertake a program to rescue the country’s banks and obtain international financial assistance. One of the measures involved the reformulation of the financial reporting principles used by the country’s banks. The standards, which are contained in the Mexican National Banking and Securities Commission’s Circular 1343 (1997), were designed to provide Mexican banks with a comprehensive set of financial reporting standards and to bring the financial reporting practices of Mexican financial institutions closer to international standards. However, while the standards contain several improvements in the fundamental aspects of financial reporting for Mexican banks, they lack some important measurement and disclosure provisions contained in international standards. Given this tendency, this paper examines the post-devaluation (1998) financial reporting practices of Mexican banks. Emphasis is placed on comparing the reporting practices contained in the banks’ 1998 financial statements with the requirements of Circular 1343, the standards published by the Mexican Institute of Public Accountants (MIPA), International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) standards, and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rules.     

XBRL财务报告分类标准评价——基于财务报告分类与公司偏好的报告实务的匹配性研究

XBRL是网络财务报告向高级阶段发展的技术基础,可以改进信息的编报和使用。然而,XBRL财务报告生成和应用的一个关键问题是采用的财务报告分类与公司偏好的报告实务间能否很好的匹配,匹配性差将导致信息损失。本文仅针对财务报表附注项目,将12个行业117个上市公司2005年年报中披露的项目与上交所制定的《中国上市公司信息披露分类》标准中定义的相应标记匹配,发现二者间存在着较大的差异,并且行业间的差异不显著。我们认为XBRL网络财务报告目前还不适宜全面应用,当务之急是进一步修改完善分类标准。     

An Analysis of Thai Financial Reporting Practices and the Impact of the 1997 Economic Crisis

We focus on listed Thai companies between 1993 and 2002 to ascertain whether the 1997 economic crisis, which we refer to as an economic disturbance, had an impact on financial reporting practices. Both changes in measurement and disclosure practices are considered and the period of study is divided into three sub‐periods: the pre‐economic crisis period (1993–96), the economic crisis period (1996–98) and the post‐economic crisis period (1998–2002). The results show that there were significant increases in disclosure levels over the ten years but no substantial changes in measurement methods. This work takes on added relevance in the light of the recent (2007–08) economic bubble and subsequent financial crisis worldwide.     

加强金融审计监督

现代金融业存在着信用风险、利率风险及通货膨胀、汇兑、金融衍生工具、政治等风险。应强化审计监督，服务宏观金融调控；要促进金融机构形成自我约束机制，强化金融内控制度等。     

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.     

A Survey of Sustainability Reporting Practices of Australian Reporting Entities

This study examines the nature and extent of sustainability reporting practices in the various reporting media used by companies listed on the ASX (annual reports, discrete reports and websites). The sustainability reporting practices of the sample are compared with key indicators outlined in the GRI framework. The annual report is found to be the least valuable source of information on corporate sustainability in terms of the number of indicators observed and the diversity of the information provided. The discrete reports and websites provide greater levels of information on sustainability; however the overall levels of disclosure are generally low.     

Canadian Financial Reporting Institutions

The recently published Easy Prey Investors: Why Broken Safety Nets Threaten Your Wealth lambastes virtually every aspect of Canadian financial reporting in exceptionally harsh terms. Although the authors' assertions about the implications of financial reporting violations they have seen are mostly unsubstantiated or overblown, publications like theirs are useful if they stimulate continual, thoughtful consideration of Canada's institutional arrangements. I discuss various methodologies for doing this and present some novel evidence indicating that some of the authors' assertions are simply incorrect. Canada's financial reporting institutions, like all institutions, are not perfect, so we must always listen to their critics' suggestions for reforming them; however, our institutions are in much better shape than Easy Prey Investors asserts.     

关于衍生金融工具的审计思考

衍生金融工具业务具有"两高一滞后"的特点,因此,可以借鉴西方的审计经验,如针对内部控制制度初步评价、实施符合性测试、进行实质性测试等基本运作思路对衍生金融工具进行审计.     

Objectives of Financial Reporting

Conceptual framework documents can be evaluated in terms of four criteria: clarity of expression, consistency of assumptions with knowledge of commercial practices and the behaviour of external users of accounting information, internal consistency, and comprehensiveness as a guide to financial reporting practice. On this basis, the Australian Accounting Research Foundation's (AARF's) Statements of Accounting Concepts No. 2 (AARF, 1990a), Objectives of General Purpose Financial Reporting , is found wanting. SAC 2 is inappropriately drafted in terms of normative statements, and incorporates considerable ambiguity because of its allusions to inconsistent objectives without guidance as to weightings or how apparently inconsistent statements might be reconciled. Supporting analysis is rudimentary at best and it relies on an inappropriate use of terminology, while statements lack empirical support and are not linked to any analysis of users' needs for information. Six recommendations for the redrafting of a more narrowly focused SAC 2 (concentrating on annual reports by profit-seeking entities) are presented.