摘要 本文之目的即從懲戒角度探索會計師事務所總、分所之審計品質差異。本文採用 2010~2015年中國大陸上市公司數據，通過實證迴歸得出了以下結論：從中國大陸本土“八大”、“十二大”來看，本文發現總所之會計師審計品質更高，被監管機關懲戒之可能性更低，這與本文之預期相符。同時，研究發現“十二大”會計師事務所總所之會計師在懲戒後改善效果比分所好。 / Abstract The objective of this thesis is to examine whether audit quality, measured as the auditor sanction likelihood, differs across auditors from headquarter office and those from other branch offices. Using a sample of listed firm in China during 2010 and 2015, my paper provides the following empirical findings. First, focusing on Big 8 or Big 12, I find that auditor from headquarter office have greater audit quality and, thus, are less likely to be sanctioned by regulatory agency or professional body, consistent with my hypothesis. Meanwhile, analyses reveal that auditors from headquarter office improve auditor quality more than those from branch office in the post-sanction period for a sub sample of firm-years audited by Big 12.

本研究以中國大陸2013年至2015年的A股上市公司為研究對象，探討總、分所審計對審計品質之影響。審計品質則以審計意見與可操縱應計盈餘衡量。研究結果發現，本土八大會計師事務所總所比分所出具非標準無保留意見的概率更高，被審計公司的可操縱應計盈餘更小。本研究藉此結果推論，本土八大會計師會計師事務所總所比分所提供更好的審計品質。另外本研究也用Heckman 模型和PSM 模型來克服回歸式的自選擇問題。另外研究進行了的敏感性測試和增額測試，實證結果是穩健的。 / The objective of this thesis is to examine the association between headquarter office auditors and audit quality. This paper uses audit opinion and discretionary accruals to proxy for audit quality. Using a sample of firm-year observations in China during 2013-2015, I find that headquarter office auditors of local “Big 8” is positively associated with higher audit quality. More specifically, the empirical results indicate that firms audited by headquarter office auditors of local “Big 8” experience lower discretionary accruals and are more likely to issue modified audit opinion than branch offices of local “Big 8”. The results are robust after controlling for self-selection bias issue, alternative measures of headquarter office auditors and alternative proxies for audit quality. In sum, this paper provide strong evidence on the notion that head office of local Big8 audit firms have better audit quality than branch office.