會計師任期與財務報表價值攸關性

Auditor Tenure and the Value-relevance of Financial Statement

本研究旨在探討會計師任期對財務報表價值攸關性之影響。本研究推論因會計師任期會影響盈餘品質，此會影響投資人在股票評價上對於盈餘、權益帳面價值之依重程度，進而影響此二者之價值攸關性。本研究以1984年至2010年間臺灣上市(櫃)及興櫃公司作為研究對象，總計有17,091筆公司-年樣本。在會計師任期變數方面，本研究沿用Chi et al.(2009)觀念，以會計師個人任期作為審計品質之衡量指標，並設立一長會計師任期虛擬變數，若會計師個人任期在7年(含)以上設為1，其餘任期則設為0。實證模式則選用Ohlson(1995)模式。實證研究結果顯示，相較於短會計師任期公司而言，長會計師任期公司之盈餘價值攸關性較低，反之，長會計師任期公司之權益帳面價值之價值攸關性較高。此代表投資人認為會計師任期長會降低盈餘品質，而在股票評價上減少對盈餘資訊之依賴，並進而加重對權益帳面價值資訊之依賴。本研究並進行若干敏感性測試，而其實證結果與主測試相似。

This study is aimed at exploring the effect of auditor tenure on the value relevance of financial statement. This study refers that long auditor tenure would reduce earnings quality and, thus, affect the value-relevance of earnings and equity book value. The firms, listed on TSE or OTC during 1984~2010 are selected as sample firms. The final sample of this study consists of 17,091 firm-year observations. Moreover, following Chi et al. (2009) concept, this study uses auditor tenure to conduct the empirical test. The empirical model of this study is Ohlson (1995) model. The empirical results show that the earnings' value-relevance of listed firms with long auditor tenure is lower than that of the counterparts of listed firms with short auditor tenure, and the equity book value's value-relevance of listed firms with long auditor tenure is higher than that of the counterparts of listed firms with short auditor tenure. This result means that long auditor tenure would reduce earnings quality, and thus make investors rely more (less) heavily on equity book value (earnings) in setting stock prices. Finally, this study conducts several additional tests and gets empirical results consistent with previous results.