审计质量特征、客户规模与公司权益资本成本

在回顾国内外相关文献的基础上,以会计师事务所规模、行业专长和审计意见来表征审计质量特征,对沪深两市2005～2009年上市公司审计行为与权益资本成本之间的关系进行了实证检验。检验结果表明,高质量的审计有利于降低公司的权益资本成本,事务所规模、行业专长与公司权益资本成本显著负相关,而被出具非标意见的上市公司有着较高的资本成本,这一关系在小公司比在大公司表现得更加明显。另外,审计事务所变更会影响公司的权益资本成本,这一关系在小公司样本组中表现得更加明显。

Audit Quality Attributes,Client Size and the Cost of Equity Capital

This paper focuses on the auditor characteristics: auditor size,auditor industry specialization and auditor opinion;client size and the auditor-client relationship: auditor turnover,and use the client firm’s cost of capital as a proxy for the degree to which the market values these quality attributes.The first two characteristics are negatively related to the cost of equity capital,and the cost will increase when auditor issues non-clean opinion.These results are more significant for small clients.We further test the relation when auditor switch,and find a negative relation with a switch from none-big to big auditor,and a positive relation with a switch from big to non-big auditor,especially in the small clients.