Abstract: This paper analyzes the effect of litigation risk on firms' audit choice and its economic consequence. We find that there is a significantly negative relation between litigation risk and auditor choice, and the earnings quality of firms facing high litigation risk is much lower than that of other firms. Further tests demonstrate that if those firms facing high litigation risk could employ high-quality auditors, the litigation risk no longer has significant effect on their earnings quality. Those results show that firms facing high litigation risk prefer to employ low-quality auditors, but high-quality auditors are helpful for firms with high litigation risk to improve their earnings quality.

Key words: Litigation Risk, Auditor Choice, Earnings Quality

摘要： 本文分析诉讼风险对企业审计师选择决策的影响及其经济后果。检验发现,面临更高诉讼风险的企业,选择高质量审计师的概率越低。同时,高诉讼风险企业披露的盈余信息质量显著更差。但是,如果高诉讼风险企业选择了高质量审计师,那么诉讼风险对盈余质量不再具有显著影响。这表明,高质量审计师能有效缓解诉讼风险对盈余质量的消极效应,提升高诉讼企业的信息披露质量。上述结论为诉讼风险的经济后果提供了新的解释,也进一步丰富和拓展了有关审计师选择决策影响因素的研究。

关键词: 诉讼风险, 审计师选择, 盈余质量