国际会计公司成员所的审计质量——基于中国审计市场的初步研究

The Audit Quality of Membership of International Accounting Firms——Based on the preliminary research on the Chinese audit market

在中国上市公司审计市场,存在着国际"四大"合作所、国际会计公司成员所和纯本土会计师事务所三种类型。之前关于事务所类型与审计质量的研究大多比较"四大"与非"四大"之间的差异(且结果不确定),而忽视加盟国际会计公司这个因素。近年,国际会计公司成员所审计中国上市公司数量占比达到40%,成为审计市场的重要力量。为此,本文研究国际会计公司成员所的审计质量是否与本土所或"四大"存在差异。研究发现,在控制了自选择问题后:如果以发表非标准审计意见的概率作为审计质量的表征量,那么"四大"明显优于国际会计公司成员所;如果以客户企业财务报表的可控应计作为审计质量的表征量,那么国际会计公司成员所与国际"四大"或本土所均不存在明显差异。整体而言,会计师事务所是否是国际会计公司成员所这个特征可能是影响审计质量的一个因素,但其显著性受到审计质量度量指标的影响。

There are three categories of accounting firms in Chinese auditing market： co-operatives of Big Four, membership of second or third-tier international accounting firms, and local accounting firms. Previous studies, leaving the membership category unexamined, mainly compare audit quality between Big Four and non-Big Four and arrive at mixed results. In recent years, however, membership of international accounting finns have audited 40 percent of Chinese listed firms, and become a quite important component of Chinese auditing market. This paper compares audit quality among these three categories of accounting firms. Our results show that Big four have higher audit quality than membership of international accounting firms if we measure audit quality with the incidence of modified audit opinions ;if we use discretionary accruals of client firms to measure audit quality, there is no signifi- cant difference in audit quality among these three categories. Overall, choice of membership is potential determinant of audit quality, but its significance is influenced by the proxies for audit quality.