当前位置: X-MOL 学术J. Account. Econ. › 论文详情
Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)
Are auditors rewarded for low audit quality? The case of auditor lenience in the insurance industry
Journal of Accounting and Economics ( IF 7.293 ) Pub Date : 2021-06-17 , DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2021.101424
Matthew S. Ege 1 , Sarah B. Stuber 1
Affiliation  

Using unique disclosures from the insurance industry, we identify instances where auditors plausibly allow clients to opportunistically utilize discretion in accounting estimates to manipulate losses to reported profits (i.e., auditor lenience). Auditing standards and SEC guidance state that auditors should consider whether a misstatement shifts a loss to a profit as a qualitative factor when evaluating the materiality of misstatements. We find that audit office lenience is positively associated with subsequent market share changes. The effect is driven by increases in the likelihood of keeping existing, non-manipulating clients. In generalizability tests, we find similar inferences in the banking industry when using bank-specific disclosures and across all industries when measuring auditor lenience using likelihood of issuing going-concern opinions. These results highlight settings where auditors may be rewarded for lenience, specifically when management values financial reporting discretion and auditors can avoid publicized audit failures.



中文翻译:

审计师是否因审计质量低而获得奖励?保险业审计师宽大案

使用保险业的独特披露,我们确定了审计师合理地允许客户机会主义地利用会计估计中的自由裁量权来操纵报告利润的损失(即审计师宽大处理)的情况。审计准则和 SEC 指南规定,审计师在评估错报的重要性时,应将错报是否将亏损转为利润作为定性因素加以考虑。我们发现审计办公室的宽容与随后的市场份额变化呈正相关。这种影响是由保留现有的、非操纵的客户的可能性增加所驱动的。在泛化性测试中,我们发现银行业在使用银行特定披露时以及在所有行业使用发布持续经营意见的可能性来衡量审计师的宽容度时都发现了类似的推论。这些结果突出了审计师可能因宽大而获得奖励的环境,特别是当管理层重视财务报告的自由裁量权并且审计师可以避免公开的审计失败时。

更新日期:2021-06-17
down
wechat
bug