An Investigation into Auditors' Continuity and Related Qualification Judgments
调查审计师对持续经营问题的判断与保留意见的关系，发现数学模型预测破产的准确率（82%）远高于审计意见提及问题（44%），并探讨了影响审计师出具保留意见的其他因素。
The auditor's reporting responsibility for firms experiencing goingconcern problems has recently come under debate (Commission on Auditors' Responsibilities [1978]). In effect, it is the Commission's view that, There is no reason to believe independent auditors are more able to predict whether a company will liquidate than they are able to predict the outcome of other uncertainties [1978, p. 30]. This statement was supported in part by early studies of the usefulness of financial statement data in predicting going-concern problems (e.g., Altman [1968], Altman and McGough [1974], Edmister [1972]). In these studies, mathematical models were constructed to evaluate the predictive ability of ratio data. Altman and McGough [1974] showed that a substantial discrepancy exists between mathematical models' abilities and auditors' abilities to predict going-concern problems. Their results indicated that Altman's discriminant bankruptcy model, originally reported in 1968, accurately predicted failure for 82 percent of a sample of failed firms, whereas problems were mentioned in the audit opinion for only 44 percent of these firms one year prior to their entering bankruptcy proceedings. However, comparison between models' accuracy and qualified opinions may be confounded by extraneous variables. Factors other than the likelihood of problems, such as the perceived consequences of qualifying, may be considered by auditors before a qualified opinion is issued. Thus,