事务所任期、审计质量与事务所强制轮换

Audit Firm Tenure,Audit Quality and Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation

2001年下半年以来,世界范围内接连发生了一系列上市公司财务欺诈案件,事务所强制轮换作为一种可能提高审计质量的手段而被提出。本文以客户操控性应计利润绝对值的高低作为审计质量替代指标,以中国上市公司2004年数据为基础,研究了审计任期与审计质量之间的关系,得出如下结论:在审计任期较短时,上市公司的盈余管理程度较大,审计质量较低;但是没有发现在审计任期较长时审计质量下降的证据。

Recently there are a lot of fraudulent financial reports in the world. Mandatory audit-firm rotation has come up as a useful means to improve audit quality. This study examines whether audit tenure is associated with audit quality. Using absolute value of discretionary accruals for audit quality and 2004 data of listed companies in China, we find that relative to medium audit firm tenures of four to six, short audit firm tenures of one to three are associated with lower quality financial reports. In contrast, we find no evidence of reduced audit quality for longer audit firm tenures of seven or more years.