Independence and the State Auditor in Britain: A Constitutional Keystone or a Case of Reified Imagery?

The principles of state audit, in particular conceptions of independence, adhered to today in the major Westminster democracies originated in the British state audit reforms of the nineteenth century. State auditors prior to the nineteenth century were not expected to be independent of the executive. Instead, state audit was recognized as an executive function to be under the direct control of the executive. For a brief period in the mid-nineteenth century, parliament was able to take advantage of a succession of weak governments to redirect the loyalties of state audit from the executive to the legislature. Although parliament wanted to be served by a state auditor who would keep it informed of executive spending, it did not alter the dominance of the Treasury over state audit. The executive sought to sustain through a discourse of independence the perception that the controls exercised by the executive over the state auditor did not constitute either a threat to audit independence or result in capture of state audit by the executive. The discourse constructed the image of state audit as a function which was able to work unimpeded and independent of the executive despite a legislative framework which contained significant financial, procedural and staffing controls.     

The Interaction between Internal Control Assessment and Substantive Testing in Audits for Fraud*

We examine the interaction between internal control assessments and substantive testing in a model of fraud detection. The purpose of our study is to examine a two‐stage model of the auditor‐manager interaction in which the auditor assesses the “likelihood” or possibility of fraud in the first stage and conducts substantive tests in the second stage. We examine the allocation of audit resources across these two distinct facets of the audit. We find that, regardless of the auditor's allocation, the probability of undetected fraud remains the same, but the allocation of some audit resources to internal control assessment may provide cost savings for the auditor.     

浅析“小金库”的弊端及治理措施

私设"十金库"危害很大,处罚规定相当严厉,但却屡禁不止,"小金库"账外账"的设立为商业贿赂提供现金流,商业贿赂也源源不断地为"小金库"提供重要的资金来源,对政府非税收入实行收支两条线管理,编制综台财政预算,规范津贴补贴发放,强化群众监督,将使"小金库"无处藏身。     

Organizational Levels and Perceived Importance of Attributes for Superior Audit Performance

This article examines the attributes considered to be important for superior performance as an auditor and the changing importance of these attributes at different levels of the firm. It also investigates whether auditors are aware of the relative importance of these attributes. Auditors from three Big Six firms provided responses on the relative importance of various attributes for superior performance. The results showed variations in the relative importance of these attributes across different organizational levels. In addition, the results suggest that auditors generally have low to moderate levels of awareness of the relative importance of these attributes.     

论ERP环境下的企业内部审计工作

ERP的实施改变了企业的经营管理方式，也带来了企业内部审计工作的转变。本文主要论述了ERP实施后对企业内部审计工作带来的影响。以及与此相适应的在审计观念、审计方法、审计重点等方面的转变。     

浅析金融环境变化下我国的商业银行审计

随着我国金融对外开放与不断深入发展,金融环境的变革对商业银行审计的模式、内容、范围等方面产生了巨大影响。本文从介绍金融环境的变化入手,分析了这些变化的影响,提出了强化商业银行内部控制、提高商业银行审计人员素质、建立审计公告制度、推行定期小规模专项审计等应对措施。     

Optimal audit policies with correlated types

Summary. We propose a version of Townsends [17] model of costly audits where the agents types are correlated. Audits are used because agents have a limited ability to bear risk so that the Full Surplus Extraction (FSE) scheme á la Crémer and McLean [5,6] and McAfee and Reny [13] are suboptimal. It is shown that Townsends result is a special case of our model when agent types are uncorrelated. The performed numerical simulation of the model using two agents and two types offers interesting insights into what we call the Townsend Ridge. Indeed, the optimal contract which specifies wages to be paid and the audit strategy are remarkably different from one side of the ridge to the next. The observed discontinuity at the ridge reflects a discreet change from a single to a dual audit policy.Received: 11 November 2002, Revised: 10 September 2003JEL Classification Numbers: C63, D82.Correspondence to: M. Martin BoyerWe wish to thank seminar participants at the CEA-Toronto, SCSE-Montréal and WCES-Seattle meetings for discussions and comments on an earlier version of the paper, as well as an anonymous referee for this journal. This paper was financially supported by an Emerging Scholar grant from the American Compensation Association, and by the Fonds FCAR-Québec. The continuing financial support of CIRANO is also appreciated. We remain responsible for any error.     

Audit Publicity and Tax Compliance: A Natural Experiment

We use confidential data on value-added tax payments at the sector level, in two large Italian cities, to estimate the effect of audit publicity on the tax compliance of local sellers. By employing a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we find that such publicity has a positive effect on fiscal declarations made shortly thereafter. The results suggest that increasing awareness on future audits via the media can be an important instrument in the hands of tax authorities.     

Ambiguity on audits and cooperation in a public goods game

We investigate the impact of various audit schemes on the provision of public goods, when contributing less than the average of the other group members is centrally sanctioned and the probability of an audit is unknown. We study how individuals update their beliefs about the probability of being audited, both before and after audits are permanently withdrawn. We find that when individuals have initially experienced systematic audits, they decrease both their beliefs and their contributions almost immediately after audits are withdrawn. In contrast, when audits were initially less frequent and more irregular, they maintain high beliefs and continue cooperating long after audits have been withdrawn. This identifies the compliance effect of irregularity and uncertainty due to learning difficulties. By increasing both the frequency of audits and the severity of sanctions, we also identify an educative effect of frequent and high sanctions on further cooperation.     

The Nature and Extent of Contemporary 'Audits' of Directors' Reports

Obligations on auditors to 'audit' directors'reports are different in the U.K., U.S.A. and Australia. This study deals with current practices and attitudes of auditors in Australia in relation to the audit of directors'reports contained in the Annual Report of listed companies. The majority of auditors responding to a questionnaire indicated that they do 'audit' directors' reports, but there was no consensus on the extent of the work done or whether it should be a statutory requirement.