Evidence on the Relation between Audit and Earnings Quality. Do Clients of Higher Quality Auditors Provide Better Financial Reporting?
Evidence on the Relation between Audit and Earnings Quality. Do Clients of Higher Quality Auditors Provide Better Financial Reporting?

Author:

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2017-06-20

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 366846748X

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Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Accounting and Taxes, grade: 1,3, , language: English, abstract: This paper studies the relation between audit and earnings quality. It examines whether firms audited by a Big 4 member engage in higher earnings management activities as proxied by the magnitude of discretionary and absolute accruals, as well as an income smoothing measure. The author predicts that large auditors have higher competencies and incentives to deliver a higher quality audit. Therefore, their clients are expected to reveal less sophisticated earnings management and thus higher earnings quality. The results do not support this relation. Since standardsetters have been concerned about managers’ use of discretion to manage earnings in their financial reports, an increasing amount of empirical research was conducted to address this issue, additionally to regulation. While independent auditors (aim to) assure that these statements are in accordance with legal compliance, the actual audit quality can be grasped as the contingency that the auditor exposes and discloses an anomaly in their clients’ financial reports. Whereas numerous audit scandals threaten the trustworthiness of well-known large auditors, there is various research revealing that Big N audited firms are supposed to disclose financial reports of higher quality. Supplementing misguiding accrual accounting practices in this regard, this study also addresses another proxy for earnings management: income smoothing. Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) explain corporate income smoothing with the fact that managers avoid revealing earning decreases and losses to diminish costs arising from transactions with stakeholders. Similarly, Degeorge, Patel and Zeckhauser (1999) show that managers smooth earnings to meet analysts’ forecasts. On the other hand there are various contrary studies. DeFond and Jimbalvo (1993) found that auditor-client disagreements resulting from earnings management, are more present in Big 4 audited firms. They explain this with the properties of the “common” Big 4 clients. For the reason of the ambiguous results, it is interesting to study the effects and compare them with prior evidence to answer the question whether Big 4 auditors deliver “higher” quality in terms of a “better” financial reporting. The terms are operationalized using a dis-cretionary accruals and income smoothing measure and analyzed for (non-)Big 4 audited UK-firms in the period 2005-2011.

Evidence on the Relation Between Audit and Earnings Quality. Do Clients of Higher Quality Auditors Provide Better Financial Reporting?
Evidence on the Relation Between Audit and Earnings Quality. Do Clients of Higher Quality Auditors Provide Better Financial Reporting?

Author: Anonym

Publisher: Grin Publishing

Published: 2017-07-07

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 9783668467491

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Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Accounting and Taxes, grade: 1,3, language: English, abstract: This paper studies the relation between audit and earnings quality. It examines whether firms audited by a Big 4 member engage in higher earnings management activities as proxied by the magnitude of discretionary and absolute accruals, as well as an income smoothing measure. The author predicts that large auditors have higher competencies and incentives to deliver a higher quality audit. Therefore, their clients are expected to reveal less sophisticated earnings management and thus higher earnings quality. The results do not support this relation. Since standardsetters have been concerned about managers' use of discretion to manage earnings in their financial reports, an increasing amount of empirical research was conducted to address this issue, additionally to regulation. While independent auditors (aim to) assure that these statements are in accordance with legal compliance, the actual audit quality can be grasped as the contingency that the auditor exposes and discloses an anomaly in their clients' financial reports. Whereas numerous audit scandals threaten the trustworthiness of well-known large auditors, there is various research revealing that Big N audited firms are supposed to disclose financial reports of higher quality. Supplementing misguiding accrual accounting practices in this regard, this study also addresses another proxy for earnings management: income smoothing. Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) explain corporate income smoothing with the fact that managers avoid revealing earning decreases and losses to diminish costs arising from transactions with stakeholders. Similarly, Degeorge, Patel and Zeckhauser (1999) show that managers smooth earnings to meet analysts' forecasts. On the other hand there are various contrary studies. DeFond and Jimbalvo (1993) found that auditor-client disagreements resulting from earnin

The Routledge Companion to Auditing
The Routledge Companion to Auditing

Author: David Hay

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-09-15

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 1136210350

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Auditing has been a subject of some controversy, and there have been repeated attempts at reforming its practice globally. This comprehensive companion surveys the state of the discipline, including emerging and cutting-edge trends. It covers the most important and controversial issues, including auditing ethics, auditor independence, social and environmental accounting as well as the future of the field. This handbook is vital reading for legislators, regulators, professionals, commentators, students and researchers involved with auditing and accounting. The collection will also prove an ideal starting place for researchers from other fields looking to break into this vital subject.

Global Comparability of Financial Reporting Under IFRS
Global Comparability of Financial Reporting Under IFRS

Author: Francesco De Luca

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-11-14

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 3031151569

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The globalization of financial markets worldwide has progressively pushed toward simultaneous globalization of accounting information. Thus, during the last 50 years, categories of preparers, users, and regulators have devoted their efforts to support the global comparability of financial reporting aiming at favoring the comparison of corporates’ financial performances at a cross-country level. In the same vein, IASB, national standard setters, and jurisdictions have participated in and given momentum to this process. At the same time, academic research has followed this process and tried to build a theoretical framework to address the related issues, to assess the impact on preparers, users, and regulators, while defining hindrances and obstacles to the comparability of financial reporting especially in an IFRS environment. In this context, this book reviews research studies on the comparability of financial reporting at a global level as well as highlights empirical analyses that demonstrate the extent to which global comparability has been achieved, and how it enhances value relevance of earnings across countries. It also looks at the cross-country investors’ perspectives by shaping the empirical analysis to provide further insights on the role of the "Big Four" auditing services in enhancing the comparability of earnings. The book provides an original contribution to the current debate about the comparability of financial reporting under IFRS and will be useful for researchers in the field.

Auditing, Trust and Governance
Auditing, Trust and Governance

Author: Reiner Quick

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-10-31

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 1134060238

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The reputation of corporate reporting has been in crisis. Trust in the process of financial accounting and auditing has been undermined by a series of high profile scandals involving major corporations, including Enron, Parmalat, Ahold, and Worldcom. In response, regulators and practitioners world-wide have put forward a series of initiatives to re

On Informal Institutions and Accounting Behavior
On Informal Institutions and Accounting Behavior

Author: Xingqiang Du

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-01-04

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 9813344628

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This book focuses on the Chinese context to investigate how informal institutions (Confucian culture and its dimensions, religion, political connections) in China affect accounting behaviors. This book tries to show that cultural influence and religious impacts in China are not trivial and increasingly important, and specifically, informal institutions have its bright and dark sides with regard to its effects on accounting behaviors. This book aims to investigate whether and how informal institutions (Confucian culture and its dimensions, religion, political connections) affect micro-level accounting behaviors, including but not limited to audit quality, financial misstatement, R&D, corporate misconducts, corporate philanthropy and corporate environmental responsibility. This book provides graduate students, scholars and practitioners in the fields of accounting, business administration and religion with an in-depth understanding about how informal institutions as a set of social norms affect micro-level accounting behaviors. First, this book is the first to focus on the Chinese context and investigate the effects of informal institutions on accounting behavior. Second, this book documents systematic evidence to show the bright and dark sides with regard to the relation between informal institutions and accounting behavior in China. Lastly, this book reveals informal institutions can serve as an important mechanism to affect accounting behaviors.

Progress in Economics Research
Progress in Economics Research

Author: Albert Tavidze

Publisher: Nova Publishers

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9781590338384

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This series spans the globe presenting leading research in economics. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that economic weapons such as sanctions seem to be as powerful as or more so than tanks. International applications and examples of economic progress are invaluable in a troubled world with economic booms bursting like so many penny balloons. Intraindustry Trade; Inequality, Human Capital, and Trade: Theory and Evidence; Estimation of Duration Models in the Presence of Heterogeneity of Unknown Form; Health and the Process of Economic Development; Monetary Volatility and the Paper-Bill Spread; Habits and Meaning in Alfred Schutz's Action Theory; Tax Evasion in a Transition Economy: Theory and Empirical Evidence from the Former Soviet Union Republic of Moldova; A Tale of Three Cities: Is an Electronic Public Order Book Appropriate for Transition Economies?; Auditors, Actuaries, and Managed Earnings; Using Principal Component Analysis to Explain Term Structure Movements: Performance and Stability; Index.

Frontiers of Business, Management and Economics
Frontiers of Business, Management and Economics

Author: Mehran Nejati

Publisher: Universal-Publishers

Published: 2013-06-05

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 161233265X

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This edited book is a compilation of research studies conducted in the areas of business, management and economics. These cutting-edge articles will be of interest to researchers, academics, and business managers.

Integrated Reporting and Audit Quality
Integrated Reporting and Audit Quality

Author: Chiara Demartini

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-04-13

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 3319488260

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This book analyzes the relationship between integrated reporting and audit quality within the European context, presenting empirical evidence and drawing on a broad review of the available literature in order to evaluate the ability of integrated reporting to enhance audit risk assessment. Dedicated sections first elucidate the concepts of integrated reporting and audit quality. The main integrated reporting frameworks are compared, the role of integrated reporting within a firm’s disclosure is examined, and all aspects of audit risk are discussed. The key question of the impacts of integrated reporting on the components of audit risk is then addressed in detail, with reference to empirical findings, their practical implications, and their limitations. The concluding section explores the future of corporate reporting and the development of the next integrated reporting framework and summarizes the insights that the analysis in the book offers into the relationship between integrated reporting and audit quality in the European setting.