会计师事务所合并对审计时滞的影响——效率观还是投入观?

The Impact of Accounting Firm Merger on Audit Lag:Audit Efficiency or Audit Effort?

本文以2008~2011年间发生合并的15家会计师事务所为实验组,匹配未发生合并的15家会计师事务所为对照组,采用双重差分模型检验会计师事务所合并对审计时滞的影响。研究发现,事务所合并后1年,相对于未发生合并的事务所,发生合并的事务所审计客户的审计时滞显著增加,并且这种正向影响在"非十大"事务所中更为显著。进一步考虑合并方式、合并后新增客户以及审计师变更等因素,事务所合并与审计时滞的正向关系仍然存在。理论上,事务所合并后审计时滞的增加可能反映了事务所合并后审计效率的下降,也可能反映了审计投入的增加。本文研究发现事务所合并后1年审计时滞越高,审计质量越差,进而支持了审计时滞的低效率观。此外,本文还发现合并后2年和3年审计时滞的低效率观有所改善,但是效果并不显著。上述研究表明,我国本土会计师事务所在政策导向下进行的合并,未能很好地实现"做大做强"的目标。

Based on 15 accounting firm mergered in 2008-2011 and DID model,The paper examines the effect of accounting firm mergers on audit lag.The results show that audit lag is significantly longer after accounting firm merger,and this delaying effect is more pronounced among accounting firm mergers out of“TOP 10”.Further,we find that whether the merger is taken by amalgamation or by new establishment,this delaying effect between accounting firm mergers and audit lag still exists.Besides,we drop samples which include the changes of auditor,and find that the delaying effect of audit firm mergers on audit lag is still significantly pronounced.Theoretically,the positive relationship between accounting firm mergers and audit lag could reflect that the effective audit inputs increase or efficiency of accounting firms decreases after merging.So we further examine how the changes of audit lag after mergers influence audit quality.We find that the longer audit lag is,the worse the audit quality is.This result supports the audit efficiency view.The results of this paper not only enrich related research on accounting firm merger and audit lag,but also have significant policy implications for regulators to take reasonable policies to promote the development of domestic accounting firms.