The Regulation of Public Company Auditing: Evidence from the Transition to AS5
研究了审计准则从AS2到AS5的转变对审计费用的影响，发现AS5下的审计费用与审计对象欺诈风险更匹配，且整体费用降低，但高风险公司费用上升，表明风险导向审计提高了效率。
ABSTRACT The replacement of Auditing Standard No. 2 (AS2) by Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS5) creates a natural experiment that sheds light on (1) potential inefficiencies caused by regulatory responses to a political crisis and (2) audit efficiency and effectiveness improvements resulting from the risk‐based approach embodied in AS5. We study these effects by examining the impact of AS5 on audit fees. We find that AS5 audit fees are aligned with auditee fraud risk, but not AS2 audit fees. Second, relative to AS2 benchmark levels, AS5 audit fees are, on average, lower for all auditees. Third, relative to AS2 benchmarks, AS5 fees are lower for lower‐fraud‐risk auditees but greater for higher‐fraud‐risk auditees. Overall, the evidence is consistent with (1) initial overregulation (via AS2) followed by reform (via AS5) and (2) auditors deploying a risk‐based audit approach to obtain both efficiency and potential effectiveness gains in audit production.