초록 열기/닫기 버튼
본 연구는 공매도 거래비중과 감사인의 감사시간 및 감사보수 간의 관련성을 검토한 후, 산업전문감사인이이들 관계에 어떤 영향을 미치는 지 살펴본다. 2014년부터 2019년까지 국내 상장사들의 자료를 이용하여 분석한 결과, 공매도와 감사인의 감사시간 및감사보수는 양(＋)의 관계를 보였다. 이는 감사인이 공매도가 발생한 피감사기업의 감사위험을 높게 인식하여감사투입시간을 증가시키고, 높은 감사보수를 요구한 것으로 해석된다. 나아가 공매도 거래비중과 감사시간및 감사보수 간의 양(＋)의 관계는 해당 감사인이 산업전문감사인인 경우에 더 강화되는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 결과를 통해 산업전문감사인은 비산업전문감사인에 비해 피감사기업의 공매도 거래비중을 높은감사위험으로 반영하여 고품질의 감사서비스를 제공함으로써 감사시간과 감사보수에 더 큰 영향을 미친것으로 보인다. 그동안 선행연구에서는 주로 공매도 제도의 실효성 및 투자자별 수익률을 살펴보았으나, 본 연구는외부감사인 입장에서 피감사기업의 공매도 거래비중을 감사위험으로 반영하는 지를 감사시간과 감사보수로실증 분석하였다는 점에서 시사점이 있다. 또한, 공매도가 발생한 기업의 감사인이 산업전문감사인인 경우, 고품질 감사를 통해 높은 감사투입시간과 감사보수가 증가한다는 결과를 제시함으로써, 산업전문감사인의감사시간과 감사보수에 영향을 미치는 결정요인에 관한 문헌에 기여할 것으로 기대된다.
This study examines the effect of weight on short-selling on audit hours and fees respectively in Korea stock market. In addition, this study investigates whether the industry expertise of auditors affects these relations. One stream on short-selling argues that it improves market efficiency as reflecting negative information in stock prices on right time while the other suggests that it negatively affects market efficiency as overly dropping firms’ stock prices. However, a growing body of empirical accounting evidence suggest that short-sellers are sophisticated users of financial- or non-financial information and find significant relation between short-selling and audit-relevant outcomes such as the incidence and severity of financial statement manipulation. Thus, we investigate whether weight on short-selling is associated with audit hours and fees as a signal of the degree of audit risk. Specifically, prior research show that short-selling is more pronounced in firms operating in an environment with high information asymmetry or in firms with poor financial reporting quality. Also, the level of information asymmetry depends on the managers’ willness or characteristic. Therefore, when auditors perform audit procedure based on information provided by firms with high short-selling, the level of information sharing with auditor can affect audit procedure. If auditors in those firms assess audit risk as high, they may extend the audit scope to reveal undisclosed information such as financial manipulation or accounting fraud. Thus, the extended audit scope might cause the increase in audit hours. Along with the increased audit hours, the increase in audit risk is expected to be a contributing factor for the increase in audit fees. Also, prior studies related with auditors’ industry expertise show that audit hours and fees of industry specialist auditors are higher than that of non-specialist auditors because they provide their client with high audit quality and services. Thus, industry specialist auditors may incrementally increase audit hours and audit fees for firms with high short-selling. To do so, this study implements regression analyses based on Korean companies listed in KOSPI and KOSDAQ from 2014 to 2019. The number of the final sample is 6,143 firm-year observations. Main findings are as follows. First, the level of short-selling and audit hours and fees is positively related, suggesting that the audit risk assessed by auditors of short-selling firms is higher. Second, the positive relation between the level of short-selling and audit hours and fees are strengthened, when auditor of firms with high short-selling is an industry specialist auditor. Our study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, we find that the trading behavior of short sellers is associated with auditors’ client risk assessments and audit pricing decisions. When other parties such as financial analysts, investors are interested in assessing firm risk, they may find the level of short-selling to be a useful risk indicator. Second, it has a contribution to existing determinant of industry specialist auditors’ audit hour and fees research by identifying that industry specialist auditors incrementally increase audit hours and fee for firms with high short-selling transactions.
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Short-Selling, Information Asymmetry, Audit Hours, Audit Fees, Industry Specialist Auditors
