签字注册会计师受声誉机制约束吗?——来自行政处罚的证据

Are Signing Certified Public Accountants Concerned about Their Reputations? Evidence from Administrative Penalties

本文以行政处罚为视角研究声誉机制是否影响签字注册会计师的审计行为。以2001~2016年中国证券监督管理委员会(以下简称证监会)对签字注册会计师的行政处罚为样本,研究发现:受处罚签字注册会计师结束审计生涯的概率更高,行政处罚会导致签字注册会计师的客户公司经历短暂的负市场异常收益,说明行政处罚损害了签字注册会计师的声誉。进一步研究还发现,行政处罚致使签字注册会计师降低审计收费,提高审计质量,说明签字注册会计师改变审计行为以重建声誉。这些发现表明针对签字注册会计师的行政处罚签字在一定程度上给受处罚签字注册会计师个人造成了声誉压力,从而促使其改善审计行为。

This study investigates whether individual auditors are concerned about their reputations. Using a dataset of enforcement actions from the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commissions(CSRC) against auditors over the period of 2001 to 2016,we find evidence of a highly probability that auditors subject to administrative penalties experience termination of their careers as auditors and that the client companies of these auditors suffer temporary losses in market value,indicating that the enforcement actions of administrative penalties impair auditor reputation. Our results also reveal that the enforcement actions result in lower audit fees and lower discretionary accruals for client companies,suggesting that auditors subject to the enforcement actions restore their reputations by improving their audit practices. Overall,our results suggest that administrative penalties,to a certain extent,damage individual auditors’ reputations,which play a critical role in governing auditors’ behaviors,however.