签字注册会计师强制轮换制度提高了审计质量吗?——基于中国上市公司的实证研究

Is Mandatory Rotation of Signing Auditors Improving the Audit Quality?——Empirical evidence from the public listed companies in China

本文分析了我国签字注册会计师强制轮换制度对审计质量的影响,并检验了影响制度效果的主要因素。研究发现,强制轮换制度总体上没有显著提高审计质量,其原因一是强制轮换制度执行中存在规避行为,导致审计师变更频繁和过渡审计师的出现,其对应审计质量较低;二是强制轮换制度实施后,新任审计师的平均专业胜任能力下降,导致审计质量下降。而具有原客户审计经验的审计师在被强制轮换后重新审计该客户的审计质量较高,这能在一定程度上抑制上市公司审计质量的整体下滑。本文的发现对进一步完善签字注册会计师强制轮换制度有较好的参考意义。

This paper analyses the impact of Chinese mandatory rotation policy of signing auditors on the audit quality. It finds that mandatory rotation policy doesn＇t significantly improve the overall audit quality. The first reason is that the transitional auditors whose audit quality are low arise from avoiding mandatory rotation behaviors in the implementation. And the second reason is the more new auditors＇ declining average auditing capability have significant negative impact on the overall audit quality. In addition, the long-term auditors with a company＇s auditing experience who re-audit the company after rotation keep the overall audit quality from falling down, due to their significantly higher audit quality than the new short-term auditor＇s audit quality. These findings provide good references to further improving the effect of signing auditors mandatory rotation.