行业经营性信息强制披露与审计费用

Mandatory Disclosure of Industry Operational Information and Audit Fees

本文以沪深交易所分期分批发布的一系列行业信息披露指引作为准实验场景,实证考察了强制公司披露行业经营性信息如何影响其审计费用。研究发现,某行业被要求披露行业经营性信息后,该行业公司的审计费用显著降低。异质性分析表明,审计师对风险的感知削弱了行业经营性信息披露降低审计费用的作用;而当行业内公司之间的可比性较高以及公司自身的信息透明度较低时,行业经营性信息披露降低审计费用的作用更为明显。进一步研究还发现,行业经营性信息披露后,审计效率与审计质量均显著提高。总之,本文表明,强制披露行业经营性信息有助于缓解审计师与公司之间的信息不对称而降低审计费用,并提高了审计质量。

Using a succession of industry disclosure rules issued by the SHSE and SZSE as a natural experiment,we investigate how firms'mandatory disclosure of industry operational information affects their audit fees.We find that firms required to disclose industry operational information have much lower audit fees following disclosure in comparison to their counterparts.Furthermore,heterogeneity analysis indicates that the above effect is less pronounced when the auditor's perception of risk is higher.It is more pronounced when comparability in the industry is higher,and when the firms'information is less transparent.Moreover,the audit efficiency and audit quality of firms with mandatory disclosure of industry operational information are also significantly higher after the disclosure.In conclusion,the results suggest that mandatory disclosure of industry operational information reduces audit fees by alleviating information asymmetry between auditors and firms and improves audit quality.