Audit Quality and Overvalued Equity

The main role of financial reporting is the effective transfer of financial information to people outside of the organization in a valid way while being on time. This way, managers have the opportunity to judge the financial reports. This study aimed to investigate the impact of audit quality incentives associated with the change of accruals in companies with high equity valuations. For this purpose, the performance of 184 companies, as a sample, during the time period of 2009-2013 was studied. In this study, the ratio of market price to earnings before extraordinary items and discontinued operations as an excess stock value measure has been used. Also, to analyze the impact of excess stock valuation on real earnings management, multivariate regression analysis considering panel data was used. The results of first hypothesis testing show that there is no significant relation between the size of audit firm and discretionary accruals. However,the results of second hypothesis testing indicate that there is a significant relationship between auditor’s tenure and optional accrual items in companies with high equity valuation. Also, the management motivation to change accruals in companies with high equity valuation is reduced.