Do Auditors and Audit Committees Lower Fraud Risk by Constraining Inconsistencies between Financial and Nonfinancial Measures?
研究发现，具有行业专长和长期任期的审计师及长期任职的审计委员会主席，能更有效地约束收入增长与相关非财务指标之间的不一致，从而降低欺诈风险；但行业专家型的审计委员会主席反而与更高的不一致性相关。
SUMMARY Prior research finds that companies committing fraud exhibit large inconsistencies between reported revenue growth and growth in revenue-related nonfinancial measures (e.g., number of stores, employees, patents). However, prior research also suggests that auditors, on average, are not adept at identifying and constraining these differences. This study investigates whether certain auditors and audit committees are able to lower fraud risk by constraining inconsistencies between financial and related nonfinancial measures (NFMs). For a sample of companies across a variety of industries, we find that auditors with greater industry expertise and tenure and audit committee chairs with greater tenure are less likely to be associated with companies that exhibit large inconsistencies between their reported revenue growth and related NFMs. Surprisingly, we observe that audit committees with industry expert chairs are more likely to be associated with large inconsistencies (higher fraud risk) than audit committees without industry expert chairs. JEL Classifications: M4.