When Auditors Say ‘No,’ Does the Market Listen?

Shimin Chen, Bingbing HU, Donghui Wu*, Ziye Zhao

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    6 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Previous research on whether the market responds to auditors’ opinions has provided mixed results. We revisit this issue in China, where individual investors who are more likely to neglect value-relevant information dominate the stock market. In addition to going concern opinions (GCOs), China permits modified audit opinions (MAOs) on violations of accounting standards or disclosure rules (GAAP/DISC MAOs), providing an opportunity not available in the literature to enrich the study of audit-opinion pricing. We find that, ceteris paribus, MAO recipients underperform in the future and have a higher incidence of adverse outcomes such as misreporting and stock delisting, and the market reacts negatively to MAOs during the short window around MAO disclosure. Importantly, MAO disclosure is not followed by negative long-term stock returns, suggesting stock price adjustments to MAOs are speedy and unbiased. These findings hold for both GCOs and GAAP/DISC MAOs. Together, our findings support the informativeness of audit opinions and cast doubt on the argument that investors inefficiently price audit opinions due to information-processing bias.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)263-305
    Number of pages43
    JournalEuropean Accounting Review
    Volume29
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 14 Mar 2020

    Scopus Subject Areas

    • Accounting

    User-Defined Keywords

    • Audit modifications
    • Capital market efficiency
    • Information content

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