事務所強制輪調能否提高審計品質：來自中國國有企業之實證

Abstract

中國在經歷一系列財務舞弊案件後開始推行審計輪調制度，國有資產管理委員會在2004-2006年頒布多項政策，要求中央直屬企業至少需每五年輪調會計師事務所並通過招標選聘審計師，規定頒布後部分地方國資委也頒布了相應強制輪調事務所政策。本文參考並延伸Chi et al. (2013)的研究，以異常應計數作為審計品質的替代變數，檢驗中國的事務所強制輪調制度是否能有效提高中央及國有地方企業的審計品質。另外，在實施強制輪調制度的十年中，有多家事務所通過合併重組等方法來規避輪調，導致規定實施情況不佳，本文試圖透過探究強制輪調事務所的頻率和審計品質的關係，以檢驗嚴格按規定輪調的中央企業是否比規避輪調的中央企業表現出更好的審計品質。 本文以2002-2015年6917個國有上市公司為樣本，以檢驗強制事務所輪調制度對國央企審計品質的影響，並採用2006-2015年強制輪調的1526個中央直屬企業，檢驗強制輪調事務所頻率與審計品質的關係。實證結果發現，在事務所強制輪調制度實施後，國有企業的審計品質整體提高，但中央直屬企業與地方國有企業的審計質量未表現出差異性。在實施強制事務所輪調的中央直屬企業中，輪調次數越多（最多輪調三次）的央企表現出更好的審計品質(約束正向的盈餘管理)。

Having witnessed a series of financial fraud cases, China started to introduce mandatory auditor rotation rules. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) introduced a series of rules in 2004-2006 to assign auditors to state-owned enterprises controlled by central government (CSOEs) and require CSOEs to rotate audit firm every 5 years. Some local regulatory authorities also issued related rules for state-owned enterprises controlled by local governments (LSOEs). This study uses abnormal accruals as a proxy for audit quality and examines the impact of mandatory audit firm rotation on audit quality, following Chi et al. (2013). In addition, this paper intends to examine the relationship between frequency of CSOEs’ mandatory audit firm rotation and audit quality during the rotation period. This study first uses a sample of 6719 state-owned enterprises firm-year observations from China stock market over the period of 2002-2015 to investigate the impact of mandatory audit firm rotation on CSOEs’ audit quality. Then it uses 1526 firm-year mandatory audit firm rotation data of CSOEs from 2006-2015 to examine the relationship between frequency of CSOEs’ mandatory audit firm rotation and audit quality. This study finds that both CSOEs and LSOEs improve their audit quality after the enactment of SASAC rules, but there is no difference in audit quality between CSOEs and LSOEs during post-rotation period. The results also indicate that CSOEs rotating audit firm more often have better audit quality in constraining upward earnings management.