Forecasts, Auditor Review, and Bank Loan Decisions
通过实地研究，考察审计师参与预测是否影响注册会计师和银行贷款官员的判断，发现对注册会计师的影响更大。
Since the 1970s, policymakers' have struggled with the issue of management disclosures of forecast information. The basic question is whether public reporting policy should prohibit forecast disclosures, allow them on a voluntary basis, or make them mandatory. Advocates of disclosure have argued that the availability of inside information and expertise places management in a position to provide useful information relevant to valuing securities. Opponents consider forecasts to be costly, noisy, and unreliable signals which invite manipulation. Largely in reaction to the forecast reliability issue, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) recently developed standards which allow auditors to review forecasted financial statements (AICPA [1980]). However, little evidence exists on the various effects (if any) of this type of auditor association with forecasts. The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a field study which investigated whether auditor associations with forecasts affected the judgments of CPAs and bank loan officers. Our results indicate that CPAs' judgments were relatively more affected than those of loan officers. In the next section we review the pertinent research which supports the notion that forecasts provide information to investors and credit grantors. We then review the limited research on whether auditor involvement with forecasts has a beneficial effect on their information