会计学院知识库

为推进“注册制”证券发行工作，促进资本市场监管向信息披露方面转型，证券交易所逐渐承担起上市公司监管主力军的角色，监管手段也不断革新。以问询函为主的预防性监管作为交易所“放松管制，加强监管”的制度安排，在完善资本市场信息披露方面起着重要的作用。2015 年以来交易所问询函件逐步向市场公开，对上市公司信息披露质量及利益相关者产生了深远影响。审计师作为风险敏感的外部利益相关者，担负着对上市公司财务报告鉴证的职责，已有研究证明问询函会显著影响审计师的风险感知。那么其是否会对审计师年审工作的定价决策产生影响？以及通过何种途径影响？现有研究还无法解答。
为研究上述问题，本文从监管环境和信号传递两个视角展开，采用 Heckman两阶段法探究证券交易所年报问询函对审计定价的影响，并试图通过引入审计投入成本和风险溢价两个变量，研究年报问询函对审计定价的作用机制。研究结果表明：（1）交易所年报问询监管制度对审计定价具有显著的提升作用，而这种作用机制是通过审计师增加资源投入、收取风险溢价实现的。（2）进一步检验发现，收函次数、是否需要审计机构发表专业核查意见、问询内容是否涉及会计信息等年报问询函不同特征对审计定价的影响存在差异。（3）基于企业性质的分组回归结果显示，年报问询函通过审计资源成本与风险溢价作用于审计定价的影响机制只在非国有企业中显著。
基于本文的实证检验结果，本文认为，年报问询监管机制作为一种新兴的监管方式，对于审计市场的治理卓有成效，为审计师识别评估审计风险提供了新的思路，促使审计师在执业过程中提高职业谨慎，保持自身独立性，但要持续发挥作用，交易所应当及时有针对性地发函，并根据回函质量伴以酌量的处罚措施，更好地发挥年报问询函的治理作用。

In order to promote the issuance of securities under the "registration system" and promote the transformation of capital market supervision to information disclosure, stock exchanges have gradually assumed the role of the main force in the supervision of listed companies, and supervision methods have also been continuously innovated. Preventive supervision based on inquiry letters, as an institutional arrangement for exchanges to "deregulate and strengthen supervision", plays an important role in improving information disclosure in the capital market. Since 2015, exchange inquiries have been gradually released to the market, which has had a profound impact on the quality of information disclosure of listed companies and stakeholders. Auditors, as risk-sensitive external stakeholders, are responsible for verifying the financial reports of listed companies. Studies have shown that the inquiry letter will significantly affect the auditor's risk perception. Will it affect the pricing of the auditor's follow-up annual audit work? And how to influence it? Existing research is still unable to answer.

In order to study the above issues, this article starts from the two perspectives of the regulatory environment and signal transmission, using the Heckman two-stage method to explore the impact of the stock exchange’s annual report inquiry letter on audit pricing, and attempts to introduce two variables, audit input cost and risk premium, Study the mechanism of the annual report inquiry letter on audit pricing. The research results show that: (1) The exchange annual report inquiries and supervision system has a significant role in improving audit pricing, and this mechanism is achieved through the auditor's increase in resource input and the collection of risk premiums. (2) Further inspection found that there are differences in the impact of different characteristics of the annual report inquiry letter on audit pricing such as the number of letters received, whether the audit institution is required to issue professional inspection opinions, and whether the content of the inquiry involves accounting information. (3) The group regression results based on the nature of the enterprise show that the influence mechanism of the annual report inquiry letter on the audit pricing through the audit resource cost and risk premium is significant only in non state-owned enterprises.

Based on the empirical test results of this article, this article believes that the annual report inquiry supervision mechanism, as an emerging supervision method, is effective in the governance of the audit market. It provides new ideas for auditors to identify and assess audit risks, and prompts auditors to practice in the process Improve professional prudence and maintain self-independence, but to continue to play a role, the exchange should send letters in a timely and targeted manner, and take appropriate penalties based on the quality of the response, to better use the annual report inquiry letter Governance role.