Auditor Conservatism, Asymmetric Monitoring, and Earnings Management*
研究六大与非六大审计师在监督盈余管理上的效果差异，发现当管理层偏好增加利润的应计项目时，六大审计师更有效；但当双方都偏好减少利润时，六大审计师反而效果更差。
Abstract In this paper, we investigate whether, and how, audit effectiveness differentiation between Big 6 and non‐Big 6 auditors is influenced by a conflict or convergence of reporting incentives faced by corporate managers and external auditors. In so doing, we incorporate into our analysis the possibility that managers self‐select both external auditors and discretionary accruals, using the two stage “treatment effects” model. Our results show that only when managers have incentives to prefer income‐increasing accrual choices are Big 6 auditors more effective than non‐Big 6 auditors in deterring/monitoring opportunistic earnings management. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find Big 6 auditors are less effective than non‐Big 6 auditors when both managers and auditors have incentives to prefer income‐decreasing accrual choices and thus no conflict of reporting incentives exists between the two parties. The above findings are robust to different proxies for opportunistic earnings management and different proxies for the direction of earnings management incentives.