国家审计影响社会审计收费的机理是寻租吗——来自央企及其控股上市公司的经验证据

Is Rent-Seeking the Mechanism of Government Audit Affecting Social Audit Fees——Empirical Evidence from Central Enterprises and State-Controlled Listed Companies

基于2010-2017年央企审计结果公告的检验显示,央企的国家审计介入程度与其控股上市公司的社会审计收费显著正相关,而与社会审计质量的关系不显著,考虑到央企的国家审计普遍存在利用社会审计服务的事实,其原因可以推定为审计寻租。进一步的研究表明,被审计央企集团的资产规模较大即利用社会审计服务的可能性和数量较大时,央企的国家审计介入程度与社会审计收费的正相关性更为显著,而与审计质量的相关性不显著,这进一步证明了国家审计对社会审计收费的影响机理是寻租。利用党的十八大后反腐倡廉形势变化的外部冲击可以验证这种寻租的存在性,即国家审计介入程度与社会审计收费的正相关性只在十八大前显著而在十八大后不显著,与审计质量的相关性在十八大前后都不显著,这既说明国家审计促使社会审计收费提高的主要原因是审计寻租,也说明十八大后国家审计机关反腐倡廉、遏制审计寻租是有效的。

Based on the announcement of the audit results of central enterprises from 2010 to 2017, it is found that the involvement level of the government audit in central enterprises is positively correlated with the social audit fees in their state-controlled listed companies rather than social audit quality, which is presumed to be caused by rent-seeking considering the widespread use of social audit services in the government audit of central enterprises. Then we studied central enterprises with larger assets size, which means these enterprises are more likely to use a larger quantity of social audit services. This further research has proved the positive correlation between the involvement level of the government audit and social audit fees, which further proved the speculation of rentseeking. In order to eventually confirm the existence of rent-seeking, this study tested above relationship under the environment of anti-corruption before and after the 18 th CPC National Congress. We find that, the positive relationship between the involvement level of the government audit and social audit fees is obvious before the 18 th CPC National Congress, but the irrelevance between the involvement level of the government audit and social audit quality hasn’t changed at all. The results not only prove that the existence of rentseeking is the reason for government audit actually raising social audit fees, but also reflect the effectiveness of anti-corruption in curbing rent-seeking after the 18 th CPC National Congress.