会计师事务所合并对审计质量之影响:来自中国资本市场的经验证据

Accounting Firm Merger and Audit Quality: Empirical Evidence from China

本文以中国2005—2009年间的会计师事务所合并案为对象,利用参与合并的会计师事务所及其上市公司客户的数据,同时从横向和纵向的角度考察了事务所合并对审计质量(以操控性应计的绝对值度量)的影响。结果发现,从横向来看,在控制了其他影响审计质量的因素之后,近两年内参与合并的事务所的审计质量显著低于未发生合并的事务所;而从纵向来看,参与合并的事务所的审计质量也显著低于合并之前。因此,尽管合并意味着相关事务所规模的快速提高,但这非但没有导致审计质量的提高,反而导致审计质量的下降。其原因部分可归结于我国事务所合并很大程度上是行政力量推动的结果以及合并初期不同事务所之间的内部摩擦。

Mergers are a convenient way to rapidly increase the size of accounting firms. Starting from 2007,China＇s market regulators have pressured and promoted accounting firms to grow larger in size. Since then,mergers among domestic accounting firms have increased markedly. Different from the mergers of accounting firms in the West,mergers of Chinese accounting firms arose largely from the pressures of regulators. Will such regulator-induced mergers help improve audit quality？ This paper uses Chinese accounting firms＇ merger cases from 2005 through 2009 to examine horizontally and vertically the merging effect of accounting firms on audit quality.Horizontal analysis is used to test whether the audit quality of merged accounting firms is significantly different from non-merged accounting firms by using the data of accounting firms and their listing clients from 2007 to 2009. Vertical analysis is used to examine whether the audit quality of merged accounting firms will be significantly different before and after the merger by using the panel data of merged accounting firms＇ listing clients two years before and two years after the merger during 2005- 2009. As for measuring audit quality,we use discretionary accruals as proxies for audit quality and estimate discretionary accruals with the cross-sectional,modified Jones model. The empirical evidence shows that after controlling other factors that affect audit quality,the audit quality of the merged accounting firms is significantly lower than that of non-merged accounting firms,and the audit quality of merged accounting firms has lowered significantly after mergers. Therefore,we conclude that in China accounting firm,mergers driven by regulatory pressures have a negative effect on audit quality even though the mergers have increased accounting firms＇ size. However,this paper also finds some limited evidence that the audit quality of accounting firms three years after mergers is not significantly different from that of non-merged accounting firms,indicating that the negative effect of merger on audit quality has gradually declined.We believe that this paper makes several contributions. First,it examines the effect of regulatory factors on audit quality of accounting firms＇ mergers. Therefore,this paper extends the prior literature on government regulation by providing empirical evidence for evaluating the effectiveness of policies that encourage accounting firms to grow larger through mergers. Second,this study extends the literature regarding the association between accounting firms＇ size and audit quality in the context of accounting firm mergers. Third,this paper uses both horizontal and vertical analyses to test the effect of accounting firm mergers on audit quality from the perspective of methodology. This combined approach represents a methodological improvement over existing researches,most of which use either horizontal or vertical but not both approaches. In conclusion,this paper provides a comprehensive test for the effect of accounting firms mergers on audit quality.