商业研究

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Can the Implementation of Key Audit Matters Standards Improve the Accuracy of Analysts′ Forecasts?

LIU Qi, NIU Yi-lin, ZHANG Cheng   

  1. (School of Accounting, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073,China)
  • Received:2019-10-01 Online:2020-04-10

Abstract: In December 2016, China approved the issuance of the standards of communicating key audit matters in audit reports, the main purpose of which is to promote auditors to disclose more personalized information and audit process information of the company, trying to solve the problems brought by insufficient information content in audit reports and overload of financial report information to users at the same time.In order to reflect the effect of the implementation of the standards, this paper empirically tests the relationship between the implementation of the key audit matters standards and the accuracy of analysts′ forecasts by taking Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2017 as samples,and tests the regulatory effect of earnings management and earnings transparency on the relationship.It is found that the implementation of the key audit matters standard significantly improves the accuracy of analysts′ forecasts, and the above relationship is more obvious in companies with high degree of earnings management and low transparency of earnings;the more readable the text of key audit matters is, and the more revenue recognition matters and asset impairment matters are disclosed, the more accurate the analyst′s prediction is.

Key words: audit report, key audit matters, accuracy of analysts′forecasts, text readability