IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/abacus/v59y2023i1p230-257.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Audit Effort and Stock Price Crash Risk

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaomei Han
  • Wei Luo
  • Liansheng Wu
  • Wei Zhou

Abstract

We examine how stock price crash risk is affected by audit effort, as measured by audit hours. Using a unique dataset of audit hours in China, we find that audit effort is negatively related to crash risk. The negative impact of audit effort on crash risk is more pronounced for listed firms that have higher inherent risks and weaker external monitoring of their information environment. Our findings are robust to various tests, including a two‐stage regression analysis, controlling for listed firm‐fixed effects and audit firm‐fixed effects, and using alternative measures of crash risk. In addition to audit output measures, audit effort has an incremental influence on crash risk. The effects of audit effort on crash risk continue to hold after controlling for auditor industry expertise and auditor tenure.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaomei Han & Wei Luo & Liansheng Wu & Wei Zhou, 2023. "Audit Effort and Stock Price Crash Risk," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 59(1), pages 230-257, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:abacus:v:59:y:2023:i:1:p:230-257
    DOI: 10.1111/abac.12281
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12281
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/abac.12281?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jia, Ning, 2018. "Corporate innovation strategy and stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 155-173.
    2. Campbell, John Y. & Hentschel, Ludger, 1992. "No news is good news *1: An asymmetric model of changing volatility in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 281-318, June.
    3. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2001. "Forecasting crashes: trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 345-381, September.
    4. French, Kenneth R. & Schwert, G. William & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1987. "Expected stock returns and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-29, September.
    5. Dye, Ronald A., 1995. "Incorporation and the audit market," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 75-114, February.
    6. Simon Dekeyser & Ann Gaeremynck & Marleen Willekens, 2019. "Evidence of Industry Scale Effects on Audit Hours, Billing Rates, and Pricing," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 666-693, June.
    7. Blackwell, DW & Noland, TR & Winters, DB, 1998. "The value of auditor assurance: Evidence from loan pricing," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 57-70.
    8. Inder K. Khurana & Raynolde Pereira & Eliza (Xia) Zhang, 2018. "Is Real Earnings Smoothing Harmful? Evidence from Firm‐Specific Stock Price Crash Risk," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(1), pages 558-587, March.
    9. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    10. Ahsan Habib & Mostafa Monzur Hasan, 2016. "Auditor-provided tax services and stock price crash risk," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 51-82, January.
    11. Jeong†Bon Kim & Liandong Zhang, 2016. "Accounting Conservatism and Stock Price Crash Risk: Firm†level Evidence," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 412-441, March.
    12. Aobdia, Daniel, 2019. "Do practitioner assessments agree with academic proxies for audit quality? Evidence from PCAOB and internal inspections," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 144-174.
    13. Jun Chen & Kam C. Chan & Wang Dong & Feida (Frank) Zhang, 2017. "Internal Control and Stock Price Crash Risk: Evidence from China," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 125-152, January.
    14. Hutton, Amy P. & Marcus, Alan J. & Tehranian, Hassan, 2009. "Opaque financial reports, R2, and crash risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 67-86, October.
    15. Alexander Bleck & Xuewen Liu, 2007. "Market Transparency and the Accounting Regime," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 229-256, May.
    16. Bekaert, Geert & Wu, Guojun, 2000. "Asymmetric Volatility and Risk in Equity Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(1), pages 1-42.
    17. Christie, Andrew A., 1982. "The stochastic behavior of common stock variances : Value, leverage and interest rate effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 407-432, December.
    18. Jeffrey L. Callen & Xiaohua Fang, 2017. "Crash Risk and the Auditor–Client Relationship," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(3), pages 1715-1750, September.
    19. Sattar A. Mansi & William F. Maxwell & Darius P. Miller, 2004. "Does Auditor Quality and Tenure Matter to Investors? Evidence from the Bond Market," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 755-793, September.
    20. Dye, Ronald A, 1993. "Auditing Standards, Legal Liability, and Auditor Wealth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(5), pages 887-914, October.
    21. Jin, Li & Myers, Stewart C., 2006. "R2 around the world: New theory and new tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 257-292, February.
    22. Robert S. Pindyck, 1984. "Uncertainty in the Theory of Renewable Resource Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(2), pages 289-303.
    23. William Rogers, 1994. "Regression standard errors in clustered samples," Stata Technical Bulletin, StataCorp LP, vol. 3(13).
    24. Bollerslev, Tim & Xu, Lai & Zhou, Hao, 2015. "Stock return and cash flow predictability: The role of volatility risk," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(2), pages 458-471.
    25. Ashok Robin & Qiang Wu & Hao Zhang, 2017. "Auditor Quality and Debt Covenants," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(1), pages 154-185, March.
    26. Okeefe, Tb & Simunic, Da & Stein, Mt, 1994. "The Production Of Audit Services - Evidence From A Major Public Accounting Firm," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 241-261.
    27. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    28. Kim, Jeong-Bon & Li, Yinghua & Zhang, Liandong, 2011. "CFOs versus CEOs: Equity incentives and crashes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 713-730, September.
    29. Caramanis, Constantinos & Lennox, Clive, 2008. "Audit effort and earnings management," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 116-138, March.
    30. An, Heng & Zhang, Ting, 2013. "Stock price synchronicity, crash risk, and institutional investors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 1-15.
    31. Hanwen Chen & Jeff Zeyun Chen & Gerald J. Lobo & Yanyan Wang, 2010. "Association Between Borrower and Lender State Ownership and Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 973-1014, December.
    32. Willenborg, M, 1999. "Empirical analysis of the economic demand for auditing in the initial public offerings market," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 225-238.
    33. DeFond, Mark & Zhang, Jieying, 2014. "A review of archival auditing research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 275-326.
    34. Wei Zhu, 2016. "Accruals and price crashes," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 349-399, June.
    35. Kim, Jeong-Bon & Li, Yinghua & Zhang, Liandong, 2011. "Corporate tax avoidance and stock price crash risk: Firm-level analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 639-662, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sun, Guanglin & Wang, Jiawei & Ai, Yongfang, 2024. "The impact of government green subsidies on stock price crash risk," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Gao, Yongjun & Mohd Saleh, Norman & Abdullah, Ahmad Monir & Adznan, Syaima, 2024. "Climate-related disclosures under the TCFD framework and business green innovation: Evidence from China A-share companies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Hyoung-Joo Lim & Dafydd Mali, 2024. "An analysis of the effect of audit effort (hours) on stock price volatility: evidence of increasing demand reducing uncertainty," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(3), pages 359-375, September.
    4. DeFond, Mark & Li, Zengquan & Wong, T.J. & Wu, Kaiwen, 2024. "Competence vs. Independence: Auditors' connections with members of their clients’ business community," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1).
    5. Wadhwa, Kavita & Goodell, John W., 2024. "Political uncertainty and stock price crash risk: Insights from state-elections in an emerging market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Choi, Young Mok & Park, Kunsu, 2022. "Zero-leverage policy and stock price crash risk: Evidence from Korea," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Hu, Gang & Liu, Yiye & Wang, Jacqueline Wenjie & Zhou, Gaoguang & Zhu, Xindong, 2022. "Insider ownership and stock price crash risk around the globe," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Min Jung Kang & Y. Han (Andy) Kim & Qunfeng Liao, 2020. "Do bankers on the board reduce crash risk?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(3), pages 684-723, June.
    4. Ma, Xiaofang & Wang, Wenming & Wu, Jiangang & Zhang, Wenlan, 2020. "Corporate customer concentration and stock price crash risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    5. Chen, Yangyang & Fan, Qingliang & Yang, Xin & Zolotoy, Leon, 2021. "CEO early-life disaster experience and stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    6. Krishnamurti, Chandrasekhar & Chowdhury, Hasibul & Han, Hien Duc, 2021. "CEO centrality and stock price crash risk," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    7. Andreou, Christoforos K. & Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Lambertides, Neophytos, 2021. "Financial distress risk and stock price crashes," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    8. Deng, Xin & Hung, Shengmin & Qiao, Zheng, 2018. "Mutual fund herding and stock price crashes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 166-184.
    9. Zhao, Rui & Zhang, Dayong & Guo, Mengmeng, 2024. "Do natural disasters affect stock price crash risk? Evidence from emerging markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    10. Hu, Jinshuai & Li, Siqi & Taboada, Alvaro G. & Zhang, Feida, 2020. "Corporate board reforms around the world and stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    11. Tung Lam Dang & Robert Faff & Hoang Luong & Lily Nguyen, 2019. "Individualistic cultures and crash risk," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 25(3), pages 622-654, June.
    12. Zhou, Jingting & Li, Wanli & Yan, Ziqiao & Lyu, Huaili, 2021. "Controlling shareholder share pledging and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Kim, Jeong-Bon & Zhang, Eliza Xia & Zhong, Kai, 2021. "Does unionization affect the manager–shareholder conflict? Evidence from firm-specific stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    14. Kong, Dongmin & Shi, Lu & Zhang, Fan, 2021. "Explain or conceal? Causal language intensity in annual report and stock price crash risk," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 715-725.
    15. Lin, Tse-Chun & Liu, Jinyu & Ni, Xiaoran, 2022. "Foreign bank entry deregulation and stock market stability: Evidence from staggered regulatory changes," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 185-207.
    16. Bing Wang & Kung‐Cheng Ho & Xinyu Liu & Yan Gu, 2022. "Industry cash flow volatility and stock price crash risk," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 356-371, March.
    17. Meng, Yongqiang & Shen, Dehua & Xiong, Xiong, 2023. "When stock price crash risk meets fundamentals," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    18. Thomas R. Kubick & G. Brandon Lockhart, 2021. "Industry tournament incentives and stock price crash risk," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(2), pages 345-369, June.
    19. Balachandran, Balasingham & Duong, Huu Nhan & Luong, Hoang & Nguyen, Lily, 2020. "Does takeover activity affect stock price crash risk? Evidence from international M&A laws," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. Jiang, Kangqi & Du, Xinyi & Chen, Zhongfei, 2022. "Firms' digitalization and stock price crash risk," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:abacus:v:59:y:2023:i:1:p:230-257. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0001-3072 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.