Factors Affecting Auditors' Evaluations of Forecasts
通过两个实验，研究审计师在正式参与财务预测审查前，认为哪些因素会影响他们对公司预测的评估，对政策制定者和审计培训有参考价值。
The auditor's role in judging the reasonableness of financial forecasts has developed into an important issue for the accounting profession.1 Evidence of this importance is manifested by the AICPA's publication of the Guide for a Review of a Financial Forecast (AICPA [1980]), its exposure draft entitled Accountant's Report on a Financial Forecast Contained in Filings Under Federal Securities Statutes (AICPA [1982]), and recent actions taken by the SEC to encourage public dissemination of managements' financial forecasts and other forward-looking information (SEC [1978; 1979; 1982]). This paper reports the results of two experiments which were designed to determine auditors' perceptions of factors which influence their evaluations of corporate forecasts. The experiments were conducted prior to the issuance of the AICPA's Guide and before the subject auditors had any formal experience in reviewing forecasts for disclosure in annual reports. This allowed us to capture auditors' preferences prior to their professional involvement. Such knowledge should be relevant to policymakers and those involved in auditor training. A previous study (Danos and Imhoff [1982a]) investigated which factors auditors considered to be most useful in evaluating corporate financial forecasts. The results indicated that auditors found such discoverable factors about a corporation's forecasts as the historical accu-