정보비대칭현상이 감사보고시차에 미치는 영향

This study investigates the relationship between information asymmetry and audit report lags (ARLs). We intend to clarify that information transparency should be premised for efficient audit. Participants of capital markets make decisions using the information in the financial statements that indicate the company’s financial position and business performance. However, managers are likely to act opportunistically due to various incentives in preparing financial statements. In capital markets, an audit is performed to reduce the opportunistic behavior of managers. Auditors perform audits based on the financial statements and information provided by managers. In other words, auditors are primary users of the information provided by managers. If information asymmetry is high, the auditor will increase the amount of audit effort to lower the target audit risk. We expect that there is a significant positive association between information asymmetry and ARLs. For this reason, we test the association between information asymmetry and ARLs. We use VOLA and TURNOVER as proxies for information asymmetry. We calculate ARL as the number of days between a firm’s fiscal year-end and the audit report date. Our sample comprises all of companies listed on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) market from 2011 to 2017. The number of final sample firm-years is 4,032. We find that there is a significant positive association between information asymmetry and ARLs. We interpret this result that as information asymmetry increases, auditors increase the amount of audit effort due to high audit risk. The result of this study provides the following differences and contributions. First of all, prior studies mainly test the determinants of information asymmetry and the effect of information asymmetry on capital markets. However, we empirically test the association between information asymmetry and ARLs in consideration of auditors, primarily exposed to information asymmetry. Secondly, our result provides evidence that information transparency should be premised for efficient audit with relatively little effort and to reduce the cost of the audit. Lastly, most prior researches use audit hours or audit fees to consider the position of external auditors. However, we test the relationship between information asymmetry and ARLs by using ARLs, directly affecting external investors as a proxy for audit quality. Our result provides evidence that information transparency should be premised for efficient audit with relatively little effort and to reduce cost of audit.