Three essays are comprised in this dissertation to examine how institution and regulation frameworks affect the quality of financial reporting by banks. The empirical investigation on whether some governance mechanisms provide incentives for banks to report high quality financial information can have policy implications regarding bank regulation. Financial reporting quality is measured either by the level of earnings management or the extent of reporting conservatism. Using these two types of proxies for financial reporting quality, we examine whether reporting quality is affected by the legal protection on investors, bank supervision/regulation practices, or securities market governance mechanisms. In the first essay, we examine international differences in bank earnings management around the world. Following Leuz et al. (2003), we argue that bank earnings management is closely linked to private benefits of insiders. As a result, bank earnings management should be negatively related to institutional factors such as legal protection on investors and bank supervision policies that encourage market discipline on banks. Consistent with this prediction, we provide evidence that earnings management is less pervasive for banks in countries where investors are better protected and where supervision policies strongly encourage private-sector monitoring on banks. We also show that the legal protection mechanisms have stronger effects on curbing activities of earnings discretion, but bank supervision policies that encourage private-sector monitoring are better at limiting income smoothing activities. Our results also suggest that stringent capital requirement or strong government supervisions are less effective in reducing earnings activities of banks. In the second essay, we document that banks, especially those that are publicly traded, are conservative in their financial reporting. In particular, banks are conservative in reporting earnings changes and they incorporate more loan loss provisions when their operating cash flows decrease or when the amount of their problem loans increases. Banks also charge off more problem loans when their loan loss provisions increase. Our cross-country comparison shows that conservative financial reporting is more pronounced in countries where supervisors are empowered to take adequate actions against banks or where bank supervisory policies to encourage private-sector monitoring are more prevalent than in countries where there is less supervision or where there is less private-sector monitoring. In the third essay, we further investigate whether securities market governance explain the international differences of reporting conservatism across listing status of banks. Our results indicate that, after controlling for banking industry regulations, securities market governance has incremental effects on the reporting conservatism by public banks. The conservative reporting by public banks is stronger in countries where securities regulators are more empowered to intervene in banks for violations to securities laws. Furthermore, the stronger conservatism for public banks relative to private banks is widespread in countries with more developed bond market. The evidence suggests that public banks practice more conservative reporting than their private counterparts when debt contracting mechanisms function well.

當今社會經濟資源的流通體系中，證券市場是十分重要之機制，當投資人於證券市場將其資金挹注於經營體質良好之公司，所產生的連動效果將有助於整體經濟的蓬勃發展。被投資公司之財務報表以及財務報表衍生的各類分析，是投資人決策過程中極為重要的參考資訊，亦是被投資公司檢視自我財務狀況及經營成果的主要依據，從而產生由會計師進行查核簽證等需求，期藉由會計師之獨立性及專業審核，合理確認財務報表是否允當表達。 　然而近年來國內外接連發生多起重大財務舞弊案件，廣大投資人及債權人直接蒙受其害，財務報表編製者、公司高階主管與簽證會計師之專業能力和職業道德備受質疑，尤其是位居專家立場，為財務報表之允當表達與否背書的會計師，更是成為眾矢之的，主管機關亦即刻就證券交易法、會計師法等相關法令進行修正，加重會計師法律責任成為報章雜誌一再出現的主題。 　　關於財務報表真實性之確保，會計師之簽證職能雖被賦予極高的期待，惟財務報表供應鍊整體尚包括公司管理階層、監察人、準則制定者、主管機關等，倘能就所有環節進行個別審視檢討，進而就供應鍊整體加以綜合規劃，對於建立證券市場健全的資訊公開體系，當能提供更完整而根本之助益。 　　本文首先說明財務報表於證券市場資訊公開體系中之定位，包括財務報表之主要內容與功能，以及進行編製、查核簽證時所應遵循之法令規範；次則就財務報表不實之意義及案例、法院判決進行探討，並介紹相關研究報告之主要內容；接著說明證券市場監理法制對於財務報表不實之防制體系，包括自律與他律機制對於確保財務資訊真實性之規範，其中由於會計師簽證係證券市場監理法制中，確保財務資訊真實性之最基本要求與第一道防線，因而另以會計師為法律責任探討主體，下分行政責任、對投資人以及委託查核客戶之民事責任、刑事責任、對受查公司追究法律責任之可行性等，依序說明現行規範及新近修法概況；最後關於財務報表內容存在不實情事時，現行法令中已納入規範之責任主體，包括有價證券發行人、證券商、發行人之職員、主辦會計人員、會計師及其他專門技術人員等，就其所應負之行政、民事、刑事責任本文以表格方式整理列示，期就財務報表不實法律責任之現行法令構成體系，作一整體檢視，並試加探討建議。