McKesson & Robbins: a milestone in auditing

When accepting the audit of a US company in 1924, Price Waterhouse agreed not to make a physical examination of inventories or to circularize debtors. Later, both of these assets proved to be overstated. Dramatic circumstances of the case gave it much publicity, and ensured that auditors now make some check of inventories and debtors.     

我国上市公司治理中的审计委员会与监事会

审计委员会和监事会是两种不同治理模式下的监督机构,我国的公司一直都设立监事会这一监督模式,但2002年1月,中国证监会颁布的《上市公司治理准则》中提到,应该在上市公司设立审计委员会制度。究竟是何原因导致证监会在目前上市公司设有监事会的基础上,还要设立审计委员会这一     

The effect of political visibility on audit effort and audit pricing

This study examines whether auditors adjust their effort and pricing decisions for political visibility. We argue, from the behavioural literature, that political visibility will create the need for more justification by auditors. Using data on actual audit fees, hours and billing rates for a sample of New Zealand public sector companies, we find that total audit fees are positively related to the number of press mentions (our proxy for political visibility). Consistent with our expectations we find that audit fees are monotonically related to audit fees. We also find that auditors increase the hours spent on the audit but not billing rates, which further suggests defensive bolstering by auditors.     

风险导向审计模式下公共财政绩效审计思路探讨

审计署2008至2012年审计工作发展规划提出要全面推进绩效审计,提高财政资金和公共资源配置、使用、利用的经济性、效率性和效果性。到2012年,每年所有的审计项目都开展绩效审计。可见,公共财政绩效审计是在财政财务收支审计发展到一定阶段推出的又一新的审计领域。本文着力探讨了在公共财政绩效审计中引入风险导向审计模式的理论可行性,以及在实践中运用风险导向审计模式的基本思路。     

Are fully independent audit committees really necessary?

Accounting scandals and concerns about the quality of financial statements have led to many calls for improved audit committee effectiveness. Prior research indicates that audit committee independence is positively related to effective oversight of the financial reporting process. Unfortunately, prior research has not provided an answer as to how much independence on the audit committee is enough. This is an important unanswered question because while Section 301 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) currently requires all listed companies to maintain an audit committee that is 100% independent there has been much debate regarding easing the SOX requirements for smaller and foreign companies. In this paper we examine whether the regulatory requirements of a completely independent audit committee are necessary to obtain the monitoring benefits related to audit committee independence that have been documented in prior literature. Our results suggest that the benefits of audit committee independence are consistently achieved only when the audit committee is completely independent. These results provide support for the SOX requirement of 100% independent audit committees.     

绩效审计：我国商业银行内部审计发展的必然趋势

绩效审计是审计发展的必然产物和高级阶段,在国际上得到迅速发展,其内部审计部门已经成为高级管理者的培训基地或摇篮。我国商业银行的内部审计也必将从以风险性、合规性为主的审计模式向以绩效审计为主导的审计模式转变。积极稳妥的拓展绩效审计工作已经成为我国商业银行需要重视和解决的问题。     

An empirical analysis of audit fee price competition after the Korean 1999 Omnibus Cartel Repeal Act

This study examines the audit service market in Korea after the 1999 Omnibus Cartel Repeal Act to determine if increased competition has led to audit fee discounting. Until 19 December 2001, when the Korean government enacted The Financial Supervisory Regulations, researchers could not address questions related to price competition in the Korean audit market due to data limitations. The new regulations allow researchers to examine audit effort for the first time because both audit hours and audit fees are now recommended disclosures. We use audit fee data of Korean companies for the 6-year period 1999–2004, and find evidence that total audit fees paid have been increasing but audit fees per hour have been decreasing. We also find that Big 5 auditing firms’ fees per hour are significantly lower than non-Big 5 auditing firms and are decreasing across time. These price pressures should be of concern to regulators and investors because prior research has demonstrated that price competition leads to discounting, which can result in unrealistically low audit fees and poor audit quality. Finally, as in previous research, we also find discounting of initial audit engagements in the Korean market.     

基于数据挖掘的商业银行对公信贷资产质量审计研究

根据商业银行信贷资产质量审计问题的特点,本文研究构建了商业银行信贷资产质量审计属性选择、决策树和支持向量机等数据挖掘算法体系。以A银行对公信贷实际数据为基础,运用定性的经济涵义和量化的属性选择算法,对其进行属性选择分析,并结合商业银行数据库中数据特点,完成数据预处理工作。对经过预处理后的数据集,进行关联规则和分类模式挖掘分析,通过在A商业银行的审计实践应用,识别出了一定金额影响该行资产质量的贷款记录,取得切实的审计成效。     

The analysis of determinants of going concern audit report

Going concern is one of essential things for user to make a financial decision. This research aims to explore factors that caused the issuance of going concern audit report by auditor. This research adds two new variables, audit size and audit committee, besides the other factors that cause auditor issue a going concern audit report. This research uses a regression logistic analysis to determine the relationship of each variable （liquidity, solvability, profitability, cash flow, audit firm size and audit committee） to going concern audit report. Different from previous researches, the results of this research show that liquidity, profitability, cash flow, and audit committee are not significant to influence the issuance of audit opinion. Audit size has a more significant relationship to audit opinion, while solvability is the most significant factor.     

审计委员会行为与基本特征相关性研究——基于2010年A股上市公司实证检验

本文使用2010年A股上市公司的数据,检验了审计委员会基本特征（财务专家、独立性、规模等）与审计委员会行为之间的关系。虽然审计委员会基本特征能够在一定程度上解释审计委员会的行为,但以这些基本特征作为审计委员会的代理变量仍然是值得推敲的。