In recent years, standard setters worldwide have considered how to enhance financial statement users’ understanding of the estimation uncertainty contained in many financial statement items. Our study examines two disclosures expected to help investors evaluate the reliability of subjective fair value estimates: a quantitative sensitivity analysis (QSA) and the auditor’s quantitative materiality threshold. Using an experiment, we predict and find that investors judge the reliability of a reported estimate to be higher and are more willing to invest when a QSA disclosure is indicative of low sensitivity (i.e., greater precision) compared to high sensitivity (i.e., greater imprecision), but only if the auditor’s materiality threshold is also disclosed. When materiality is not disclosed, investors fail to recognize differences in reliability between the two levels of sensitivity, even though the amount of imprecision in the low sensitivity condition represents a fraction of materiality, while in the high sensitivity condition, this amount exceeds materiality multiple times over. Furthermore, when both disclosures are absent and only a qualitative description of sensitivity is provided—as required by current standards—investors perceive the disclosure to be relatively uninformative and respond to the ambiguous disclosure by decreasing their willingness to invest. The results of our study should be informative to accounting and auditing standard setters as they continue to consider the types of disclosures that may help investors understand the most complex and subjective aspects of financial reporting.

近年来，全球的标准制定者已经考虑了如何增强财务报表用户对许多财务报表项目中所包含的估计不确定性的理解。我们的研究检查了有望帮助投资者评估主观公允价值估计值可靠性的两项披露：量化敏感性分析（QSA）和审计师的量化重要性阈值。通过实验，我们预测并发现，当QSA披露表明低敏感性（即更高的准确性）与高敏感性（即更高的不准确性）相比时，投资者认为报告的估计的可靠性更高，并且更愿意投资。 ），但仅限如果还披露了审计师的重要性阈值。如果没有披露重要性，即使在低灵敏度条件下的不精确程度代表了重要性的一小部分，投资者也无法认识到这两个敏感性水平之间的可靠性差异，而在高灵敏度条件下，该数量多次超过了重要性。超过。此外，当两项披露均不存在且仅是定性的时根据当前标准的要求，提供了敏感性描述，投资者认为该披露内容相对不实用，并通过降低其投资意愿来应对含糊不清的披露内容。我们的研究结果应为会计和审计准则制定者提供有益的信息，因为他们继续考虑可帮助投资者了解财务报告最复杂和主观方面的披露类型。