Big 4 Office Size and Audit Quality
Big 4 Office Size and Audit Quality
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DOI：
10.2308/accr.2009.84.5.1521
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发表时间：
2009-09-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Yu, Michael D.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Francis, Jere R.;Yu, Michael D.
预计四大审计师的较大办公室将为 SEC 注册人提供更高质量的审计，因为它们在管理此类审计方面拥有更丰富的内部经验。我们通过检查 2003-2005 年期间 6,568 个美国公司年度观察样本并由 285 个独特的四大办事处审计来检验这一预测。结果与提供更高质量审计的较大办公室一致。具体而言，较大的办事处更有可能发布持续经营审计报告，而较大办事处的客户则表现出不那么激进的盈余管理行为。这些发现对于对客户风险因素的广泛控制和对其他审计师特征的控制是稳健的。虽然有证据表明四大办事处的审计质量平均较高，但我们并不认为较小办事处的审计质量低得令人无法接受。
Larger offices of Big 4 auditors are predicted to have higher quality audits for SEC registrants due to greater in-house experience in administering such audits. We test this prediction by examining a sample of 6,568 U. S. firm-year observations for the period 2003-2005 and audited by 285 unique Big 4 offices. Results are consistent with larger offices providing higher quality audits. Specifically, larger offices are more likely to issue going-concern audit reports, and clients in larger offices evidence less aggressive earnings management behavior. These findings are robust to extensive controls for client risk factors and to controls for other auditor characteristics. While the evidence suggests audit quality is higher on average in larger Big 4 offices, we make no claims that audit quality is unacceptably low in smaller offices.