审计事务所和审计成本/费用会影响瑞典自治市的盈余管理吗?

Do audit firm and audit costs/fees influence earnings management in Swedish municipalities?

以前对私营部门的研究表明,审计师和审计事务所是确保基于权责发生制(accrual accounting)的高质量报告的重要因素。本研究的目的是探讨审计事务所和审计成本/费用影响市政当局在其年度账目中采用盈余管理的可能性。我们的实证数据涵盖2011-2013财年,摘自年度报告或从其他来源检索而来。总体而言,我们的研究表明,如果审计成本/费用增加,盈余管理的可能性就会增加。但是,盈余管理的可能性会随着审计事务所的不同而不同。这意味着审计质量是影响瑞典自治市盈余管理可能性的一个因素。该研究还表明,不同的审计事务所在专业与商业逻辑之间做出了不同的权衡,这反映在客户实施盈余管理的倾向上。

Previous research on the private sector shows that auditors and auditing firms are important actors in ensuring high-quality reporting based on accrual accounting.The aim of this study is to explore whether audit firms and audit costs/fees influence municipalities’ probability of applying earnings management in their annual accounts.The empirical data,which covered the financial years 2011-13,were handpicked from annual reports or retrieved from other sources.In general,our study shows that the probability of earnings management increased if audit costs/fees increased.However,there were differences regarding the probability of earnings management relating to which audit firm was engaged.This implies that audit quality is a factor that affects the probability of earnings management in Swedish municipalities.The study also indicates that different audit firms make different trade-offs between professional versus commercial logics,and that this is reflected in the clients’ propensity to engage in earnings management.