Seeing is believing? Executives' facial trustworthiness,auditor tenure,and audit fees

Psychology and neuroscience studies document that facial trustworthiness perceptions may affect observers' decision-making process. Our study examines whether auditors' perceptions of client executives' facial trustworthiness are associated with their audit fee decisions. We employ a machine-learning-based face-detection algorithm to measure executives' facial trustworthiness. We find that auditors charge 5.6% less audit fee to firms with trustworthy-looking CFOs than to those with untrustworthy-looking CFOs in initial audit engagements. Auditor tenure weakens the negative association between CFOs' facial trustworthiness and audit fee. Further evidence shows that CFO's facial trustworthiness is associated with neither financial reporting quality nor litigation risk.     

家族管理、终极控制与审计师选择

基于家族控制的竞争优势与控制权私人收益两种理论基础,本文以2003-2008年的家族上市公司为样本,论文考察了家族公司家族管理、控制机制与外部审计师选择之间的关系。研究发现,相对于以间接方式上市的家族公司,直接上市更有可能选择审计质量较高的四大;家族管理即实际控制人担任董事长或总经理、家族指定管理层与高管持股比例较高的企业更有动机选择高质量审计,而家族控制机制即金字塔结构、控制权与现金流分离程度对高质量审计的需求有显著的负向影响。进一步研究发现,家族管理对高质量审计师需求的正向作用在直接上市的家族公司中更为显著;家族控制对审计师需求的负向作用仅在控制权比例大于30%的子样本中显著;当家族管理控制人参与家族管理时,会降低两权分离所带来的外部审计师需求的负效应。本文的贡献在于对家族上市公司的管理与控制特征进行了更为细致的分类,并从家族偏好、家族管理与控制机制三方面考察了其外部审计师选择行为。研究增进了对我国家族上市公司的认识,对理解家族上市公司控制手段与管理模式提供了新的视角。     

Information Quality of Interim Financial Statements

Expressing concern about the Canadian capital market environment, Boritz (2006) suggested that the accounting and auditing profession may be paying limited attention to quarterly reports. This study investigates whether fourth‐quarter adjustments are significantly different from the previous three, thereby limiting the reliability or faithful representation of the firms' results for each quarter. This study includes four years (2003–2006) of quarterly financial information of 353 Canadian public companies. Our results indicate that the volatility of net income in each of the first three quarters is considerably lower than in the final quarter. While lower volatility can improve predictability, the resulting relevance may be limited. The low volatility of reported earnings in the first three quarters suggests that either earnings management is taking place or that management may not be exercising sufficient care at the end of each of the first three quarters on the measurements that generally accepted accounting principles call for and readers of financial statements expect. This could result in quarterly financial statements that do not faithfully represent the underlying resources and obligations of the reporting firms at the end of the quarter, or the firm's performance during the quarter. Our findings support Boritz's proposition for increased audit requirements for interim reports and changes in the approach to the annual audit to integrate it more closely with interim financial reporting.     

Client importance and non-Big 5 auditors’ reporting decisions

In this paper, we examine the effect of the trade-off between economic dependence and reputation protection on the link between client size and the audit reporting decisions of non-Big 5 auditors. We find that non-Big 5 auditors, like Big 5 auditors, do not allow their larger clients greater leeway to manage earnings. In fact, there is some evidence that non-Big 5 auditors treat their larger clients more strictly. In addition, non-Big 5 auditors, like Big 5 auditors, are at least as likely to issue a going-concern report to their potentially financially distressed larger clients as they are to their otherwise smaller clients.     

Audit committee quality,auditor independence,and internal control weaknesses

In this paper we investigate the relation between audit committee quality, auditor independence, and the disclosure of internal control weaknesses after the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We begin with a sample of firms with internal control weaknesses and, based on industry, size, and performance, match these firms to a sample of control firms without internal control weaknesses. Our conditional logit analyses indicate that a relation exists between audit committee quality, auditor independence, and internal control weaknesses. Firms are more likely to be identified with an internal control weakness, if their audit committees have less financial expertise or, more specifically, have less accounting financial expertise and non-accounting financial expertise. They are also more likely to be identified with an internal control weakness, if their auditors are more independent. In addition, firms with recent auditor changes are more likely to have internal control weaknesses.     

证券行政处罚证明标准探讨

证券行政处罚证明标准是证券行政处罚程序的一项基本证据制度。但由于我国证明标准立法不足，在证券行政处罚程序中采用何种证明标准就成为证券监管机关面对的一个难题。本文分析了我国证明标准立法存在的问题，吸收了证明标准改革和立法的理论研究及司法实践成果，借鉴国外通行做法，提出了证券行政处罚证明标准的立法思路。     

“抵制华货”与抵制日货的差异及警示

从"抵制华货"的原因、主体、范围、手段、目的和实质等方面看,它与抵制日货重新爆发明显不同,这给企业经营者、相关政府部门的管理者、支持和反对抵制日货的国人以及全球化语境下主张经济国际主义和民族虚无主义的人带来许多警示。     

The impact of corporate governance on auditor choice: Evidence from China

As the largest and fastest growing emerging market, China is becoming more and more important to investors throughout the world. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of firms’ auditor choice in China in respect of their corporate governance mechanism. Normally firms have to take a trade-off in their auditor choice decisions, i.e., to hire high-quality auditors to signal effective audit monitoring and good corporate governance to lower their capital raising costs, or to select low-quality auditors with less effective audit monitoring in order to reap private benefits derived from weak corporate governance and less-transparent disclosure (the opaqueness gains). We develop a logit regression model to test the impact of firms’ internal corporate governance mechanism on auditor choice decisions made by IPO firms getting listed during a bear market period of 2001–2004 in China. Three variables are used to proxy for firms’ internal corporate governance mechanism, i.e., the ownership concentration, the size of the supervisory board (SB), and the duality of CEO and chairman of board of directors (BoDs). We classify all auditors in China into large auditors (Top 10) and others (non-Top 10), assuming the large auditors can provide higher quality audit services. The empirical results show that firms with larger controlling shareholders, with smaller size of SB, or in which CEO and BoDs chairman are the same person, are less likely to hire a Top 10 (high-quality) auditor. This suggests that when benefits from lowering capital raising costs are trivial, firms with weaker internal corporate governance mechanism are inclined to choose a low-quality auditor so as to capture and sustain their opaqueness gains. On the other hand, with improvement of corporate governance, firms should be more likely to appoint high-quality auditors.     

Financial Statement Frauds and Auditor Sanctions: An Analysis of Enforcement Actions in China

The rising tide of corporate scandals and audit failures has shocked the public, and the integrity of auditors is being increasingly questioned. It is crucial for auditors and regulators to understand the main causes of audit failure and devise preventive measures accordingly. This study analyzes enforcement actions issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission against auditors in respect of fraudulent financial reporting committed by listed companies in China. We find that auditors are more likely to be sanctioned by the regulators for failing to detect and report material misstatement frauds rather than disclosure frauds. Further analysis of the material misstatements indicates that auditors are more likely to be sanctioned for failing to detect and report revenue-related frauds rather than assets-related frauds. In sum, our results suggest that regulators believe auditors have the responsibility to detect and report frauds that are egregious, transaction-based, and related to accounting earnings. The results contribute to our knowledge of auditors’ responsibilities for detecting frauds as perceived by regulators.     

审计师-客户长期关系、强制轮换与审计质量

本文从审计师-客户长期关系的视角出发,对审计师强制轮换与审计质量之间的关系进行了探讨.研究发现:对于财务状况较差的公司,若审计师与客户之间不存在长期关系,则强制轮换后的审计质量显著提高,若审计师与客户之间存在长期关系,则强制轮换后审计质量的提高被弱化;而对于财务状况较好的公司,无论审计师与客户之间是否存在长期关系,强制轮换后的审计质量均未发生显著变化.本文研究对审计师强制轮换的监管具有借鉴意义.