Rodízio de auditoria e a qualidade dos lucros: uma análise a partir dos accruals residuais

Abstract

Independent audit plays an important role in the relationship between the company and external users, and the auditor must be independent of the audited company. In Brazil, the mandatory audit firm rotation is regulated by CVM Instruction 308/99, in an attempt to contribute to the maintenance of auditor independence and, consequently, with the quality of earnings disclosed by the companies. Therefore, the present study has the objective of analyzing the effect of the audit firm rotation on the earnings quality of Brazilian public companies listed on BM&FBOVESPA in the period from 2008 to 2015. Residuals accruals were used as a measure of earnings quality, which identify a discretionary portion of the accruals, inverse measure of earnings quality. The residuals accruals were approached from two different perspectives: earnings management, measured by Jones model (1991) and Jones modified by Dechow, Sloan and Sweeney model (1995) and the estimation errors, measured by the Dechow and Dichev model (2002) and Dechow and Dichev modified by McNichols model (2002). The results show that audit firm rotation reduced the volume of residuals accruals and, thus, increases the earnings quality, when these are measured from the perspective of earnings management through the Jones and Jones modified models. However, the effect of audit firm rotation on the earnings quality is not observed when the residuals accruals are measured from the perspective of accounting estimation errors, through the Dechow and Dichev and McNichols models. On the other hand, the results demonstrate that the companies that perform the voluntary audit firm rotation have greater residuals accruals and, consequently, lower earnings quality.