| 摘要Abstract | 本文探討審計品質與盈餘管理之關聯性。目前文獻歸納盈餘管理的本 質有二：溝通私有資訊與自利行為。實證結果顯示高審計品質有較強的監管 功能，限制了管理者的投機性應計項目管理，至於高審計品質可增進裁量性 應計數與未來獲利能力提昇之關聯性假說，則未獲得資料支持。有效抑阻盈 餘雜訊，僅代表審計品質之消極作用。提昇盈餘資訊性，則可為審計品質之 正面積極作用。目前之關注似著重在前者，但二種力量不應有所偏廢。本文 結果可提供審計準則制定單位與會計師專業之管制單位重新思考審計人員 對財務報告資訊品質之貢獻。This paper examines the effect of auditor’s quality on earnings management. There are two hypotheses about managerial discretion in the literature. One is the information-signaling hypothesis, discretionary accruals help managers to convey the private information about future profitability beyond the historical cost accounting, to improve the ability of earnings to reflect economic value. The other is the opportunistic accrual management, discretionary accruals are employed to hide poor performance or postpone a portion of unusually good current earnings to future years, and hence they are value-irrelevant. The empirical results show that higher quality auditors reduce more opportunistic accruals. However, the evidence in the paper doesn’t support that audit quality can enhance the association between discretionary accruals and changes in firm’s future performance. Reducing the noise of earnings is the passive effect of audit quality. On the other hand, improving the informativeness of earnings is the active effect. These two effects should be treated importantly as equal, but it seems that the passive effect is much more often discussed. The results showed in the paper can provide auditing standards setters and accounting profession regulators to rethink the contribution of auditors to the quality of financial reporting. |