题　目：To centralize or not: Control right allocation and auditor incentives

嘉　宾：林宇鹏 副教授 新加坡国立大学商学院

主持人：张珂源 助理教授 上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院

时　间：2023年03月27日（周一）14:00-15:30

地　点：上海交通大学（徐汇校区）安泰经济与管理学院A511

内容简介:

We use the audit industry in China as a laboratory to examine the role of control right allocation on individual auditors’ incentives when balancing coordination and local information acquisition. Using proprietary data on internal control right allocations, our tests reveal that local engagement auditors of more centralized audit firms provide more effort than their decentralized peers. Auditors in centralized firms are also more likely to adjust reported earnings downward and produce better-quality audited financial statements than in decentralized firms. These associations attenuate in headquarters where the tension between coordination and local information acquisition is absent. We use Confucian culture and rice farming regions as instrumental variables of preference for centralization and find consistent results. Tests based on changes in centralization due to audit firm mergers also yield similar inferences. Further analyses show that the beneficial effects of centralization are more pronounced when central authority has lower information acquisition costs but are weaker when local clients are complex. Our findings directly inform the classic debate on coordinated versus spontaneous adaptation (Williamson, 1996; Hayek, 1945).

演讲人简介：

Dr. Lin Yupeng is the Dean's Chair Associate Professor at the Department of Accountancy of NUS Business School. He joined the National University of Singapore in July 2016. Prior to that, he was an Assistant Professor of Accountancy at the City University of Hong Kong. His works have been published in top accounting and finance journals, including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Journal of Law and Economics and Organization Science. He earned Bachelor in Economics from Sun Yat-Sen University in 2008 and a Ph. D. in Business Administration from the National University of Singapore in 2014. His current research interests cover topics related to taxation, inequality, and climate change.

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