政府补助、代理成本与审计费用

Government Subsidy,Agency Cost and Audit Fee

政府补助是会计监管的重点领域,政府补助在委托人和代理人之间信息不对称、其自身风险使代理人增加担保成本和剩余损失等,导致企业代理成本增加,进而直接影响企业审计费用。以2007—2022年沪深两市A股上市公司为研究样本,实证检验了政府补助对企业审计费用的影响。结果表明:政府补助显著提高了企业审计费用,这一提升作用在国有企业、处在市场化程度高地区的企业、审计机构为国际“四大”事务所的企业以及分析师关注度较高的企业中较弱。政府补助通过增加企业代理成本,进而提高企业审计费用。政府补助提高企业审计费用不仅来源于审计师审计的增加,还来源于审计师面临更大审计风险而产生的风险溢价。丰富了政府补助及审计费用相关研究,有助于政府及审计机构审视企业经营管理行为。

Government subsidy is a key area of accounting supervision.When causing information asymmetry between principals and agents,increasing the guarantee costs for agents due to their own risks and increasing residual losses,government subsidies may result in an increase in enterprises’agency costs,which in turn directly affects enterprises’audit fees.By taking the A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2007 to 2022 as research samples,this study empirically tests the impact of government subsidies on corporate audit fees.The research results indicate that government subsidies significantly increase enterprises’audit fees,and such an enhancing effect is weaker in state-owned enterprises,the enterprises located in highly market-oriented areas,the enterprises audited by the“Big Four”international audit institutions,and the enterprises with high analyst attention.Government subsidies increase enterprises’audit fees through increasing their agency costs.Government subsidies increasing enterprises’audit fees comes not only from the increase in auditor audits,but also from the risk premium generated by auditors’facing greater audit risks.