After a lengthy and protracted debate, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) adopted new rules requiring disclosure of the engagement partner’s name and information about other accounting firms on the new PCAOB Form AP, Auditor Reporting of Certain Audit Participants. We investigate the impact of this regulation on auditor behavior in the context of the auditor’s going concern report modification propensity. We document an increase in the propensity to issue a going concern report modification in the disclosure regime, accompanied by a corresponding increase in the Type I (‘false positives’) error rate. Thus, an unintended consequence of Rule 3211 is the potential reduction in the audit report's informativeness. Conceivably, a more significant repercussion is that going concern modifications can hasten bankruptcy for firms since financial institutions may be reluctant to lend money to firms with modified audit reports. An unjustified increase in the going concern modification rate as evinced in our paper may make U.S. capital markets potentially less attractive to young, upstart, albeit financially-distressed, companies.

经过漫长而旷日持久的辩论，上市公司会计监督委员会 (PCAOB) 采用了新规则，要求在新的 PCAOB 表格 AP（某些审计参与者的审计师报告）中披露项目合伙人的姓名和其他会计师事务所的信息。我们在审计师持续经营报告修改倾向的背景下调查了该法规对审计师行为的影响。我们记录了在披露制度中发布持续经营报告修改的倾向增加，伴随着 I 类（“误报”）错误率的相应增加。因此，规则 3211 的一个意想不到的后果是审计报告的信息量可能会降低。可以想象，一个更显着的影响是，持续经营的修改可能会加速公司破产，因为金融机构可能不愿意借钱给修改过审计报告的公司。正如我们的论文所表明的那样，持续经营修改率的不合理增加可能会降低美国资本市场对年轻、新贵、尽管财务状况不佳的公司的吸引力。