The Effects of Key Audit Matters on the Usefulness of the Financial Statements in China

In this study, we analyze the effects of disclosures of key audit matters on the usefulness of the financial statements in China. Specifically, an empirical analysis is conducted in three aspects as earnings accruals, real activities earnings management, and comparability of the financial statements. We collect 17,121 sample firm-years data in A-share listed companies from the year 2013 through the year 2019 and the characteristics of the KAM in the audit reports. Analyses show that the disclosure of key audit matters reduces the level of earnings accruals implying the enhancement of the quality of earnings. Although the disclosure of key audit matters does not significantly reduce the level of real activity earnings management in the full sample, there is a significant and negative correlation between the disclosure of key audit matters and the level of real activities earnings management in the sample of manufacturing companies. We find as the number of key audit matters increases, the level of real activity earnings management decreases significantly. We further find that there is a significant positive association between the comparability of accounting information and the disclosure of key audit matters, implying that the disclosure of key audit matters makes the financial statements more useful. Overall, the disclosures of key audit matters can significantly improve the quality of the financial statements.