Is audit materiality informative?Evidence from China  

作　　者：Lei Zhu Qianwen Zheng Yubin Li 

机构地区：[1]Government Accounting Research Institute,Zhongnan University of Economics and Law,China,Institute of Financial Management,Zhongnan University of Economics and Law,China [2]Business School,Sichuan University,Chengdu,Sichuan,China [3]School of Economics and Management,Harbin Institute of Technology(Shenzhen),Guangdong,China

出　　处：《China Journal of Accounting Research》2024年第3期120-137,共18页中国会计学刊（英文版）

基　　金：support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities,Zhongnan University of Economics and Law(Grant No.2722024BQ050);“State-sponsored Post-doctoral Program of China”(Grant No.GZC20233136);Zheng acknowledges financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(Grant No.skbsh2202-36);Li acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China,China(Grant No.72002059);the Shenzhen Peacock Plan research fund(Grant No.GA11409006);the Shenzhen Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences(Grant No.KP191002).

摘　　要：To improve the usefulness of audit opinions,on 23 March 2021,the China Securities Regulatory Commission mandated that auditors disclose overall quantitative materiality of consolidated financial statements in special explanations of modified audit opinions.This paper selects Chinese A-share companies issued with modified audit opinions for the period of 2020-2022 as the research sample and analyzes the assessment of materiality in audit practice and the informativeness of audit materiality.Our findings are as follows.(1)The most commonly used bases for materiality by auditors are profit and income,with considerable differences in the percentages applied to the different bases and variations even within the same base.(2)The higher the materiality amount,the poorer the audit quality.This negative correlation is mainly observed in scenarios where the audited companies engage in downward earnings management and where the competency of audit firms or auditors is relatively low.(3)Companies that disclose quantitative materiality in the special explanations of modified audit opinions have a lower earnings response coefficient than companies that do not disclose audit materiality.This research sheds light on the“black box”of the audit process and verifies the information value of audit materiality.The conclusions are of significant value to auditing standard-setters,investors and regulators.

关 键 词：Audit Materiality Audit Quality Auditor Competence Investors’Decision-Making 

分 类 号：F239.2[经济管理—会计学]