Accounting Seminar(2018-22)

Topic: Federal Judge Ideology and Auditor Reporting Behavior

Speaker: Baolei Qi, Xi’an Jiaotong University

Time: Wednesday, Dec 5^th, 10:00-11:30a.m

Place: Room K02, Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:

This paper investigates how the ex-ante litigation risk influences auditor reporting behavior. Drawing on the political theory of judicial decision making, this paper uses federal judge ideology as the proxy of ex-ante litigation risk. We find that auditors are more likely to issue going concern audit opinions to financially distressed clients if the engagement office located in more liberal Circuit Court of Appeal. The results are robust when controlling the circuit court judge ideology where audit firms’ and clients’ headquarters located, as well as state liability regimes. In the cross-sectional tests, we find the results are more significant for the sub-sample of Big4 and the sub-sample with high litigation risks. Using the change of federal judge ideology in circuit courts as quasi-experiment, we find auditors become more conservative on reporting decision when circuit courts shifting from conservative to liberal, while auditors become less conservative on reporting decision when circuit courts shifting from liberal to conservative. In addition, we find that auditors charge higher audit fees and spend longer time on engagements if engagement offices located in more liberal circuits. Taken together, our findings suggest that federal judge ideology has a distinguishable effect on auditor reporting behavior.

Introduction:

齐保垒，博士，西安交通大学管理学院会计与财务系教授、博士生导师，2017年11月，入选陕西省首批“青年杰出人才”支持计划，2017年12月，入选“全国会计领军人才（学术类）”培养工程，2018年1月入选西安交通大学“青年拔尖人才”，晋升教授。2010年10月至2011年4月，以研究助理的身份访学香港理工大学，2011年9月至2013年3月，受国家留学基金委资助以联合培养博士生身份分别访学美国University of Wisconsin和The University of Texas at Dallas。2018年3月至2018年6月，以高级访问学者身份访学香港大学（University of Hong Kong）。长期从事审计、公司治理与财务报告信息质量领域的科研与教学工作，研究成果发表在《The Accounting Review》、《Accounting Horizons》、《International Journal of Accounting》、《Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting》、《The International Journal of Financial Management and Accounting》、《Accounting and Finance》、《Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting and Economics》、《Decision Support System》、《Journal of Applied Business Research》、《管理世界》、《南开管理评论》、《管理科学》、《管理评论》等国内外著名期刊。

Your participation is warmly welcomed!