Abstract We investigate the effect of key audit matters (KAM) in the auditor’s report as required by the new ISA 701. We consider investment professionals and non-professional investors in our experiments, in which we test the communicative value of a KAM section relating to goodwill impairment. Our main results show that in the condition in which the KAM section suggests that already small changes in the key assumptions could eventually lead to a goodwill impairment (KAM negative condition), investment professionals assess the economic situation of the company to be significantly better as compared to the condition in which the KAM section suggests that only large changes in the key assumptions could eventually lead to a goodwill impairment (KAM positive condition). In the additional analysis with non-professional investors, we find that a KAM section has no communicative value, implying that non-professional investors have difficulties with processing the information conveyed with KAM.

中文翻译：

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关键审计事项对审计报告的沟通价值的影响：来自投资专业人士和非专业投资者的实验证据

摘要我们按照新ISA 701的要求，研究了关键审计事项（KAM）在审计报告中的作用。我们在实验中考虑了投资专业人士和非专业投资者，在这些实验中，我们测试了与商誉减损。我们的主要结果表明，在“ KAM”部分表明关键假设中已经很小的变化最终可能导致商誉减损的情况下（KAM负面条件），投资专家认为公司的经济状况比以前好得多。根据KAM部分提出的条件，关键假设中的较大变化最终会导致商誉减损（KAM积极条件）。在对非专业投资者的额外分析中，