Intra-group Debt Guarantees and Audit Pricing: Risk Diffusion or Risk Neutralization

Abstract

From the perspective of the groups formed by listed companies and their subsidiaries, there may be “risk diffusion” effect and “risk neutralization” effect in the debt guarantee of listed companies to their subsidiaries, but it is regrettable that the existing studies have not made a distinction between them. However, under the risk-oriented audit mode in China, the risk level of the auditee directly affects the audit pricing behavior of CPA. In view of this, this paper examines the relationship between debt guarantees and audit pricing of listed companies within the group. The results show that: The debt guarantee for subsidiaries of listed companies within the group improves the audit pricing by enhancing the financial risk and operational risk of listed companies; further research shows that, compared with the debt guarantee of state-owned enterprises and guarantee mode, if the listed company is the debt guarantee of non-state-owned enterprises and joint and several liability, its debt guarantee for subsidiaries will enhance the audit pricing. When the financial level of listed companies is higher, the debt guarantee for subsidiaries will lead to the increase of audit pricing, and good internal control can inhibit the increase of audit pricing caused by the debt guarantee of listed companies. Therefore, this paper argues that listed companies should reasonably choose the way of debt guarantees, and comprehensively study and judge the possible risk points of debt guarantees for subsidiaries, so as to judge whether to guarantee the subsidiaries; the subsidiaries should comprehensively analyze their own resource endowment, financial ability and comprehensive governance ability, so as to prevent the transmission of credit risk to the parent company as far as possible, and curb the group as a whole; auditors should consider the risk points of debt guarantees of listed companies to subsidiaries and the complexity of obtaining audit evidence, and reasonably determine audit fees.The possible contributions of this paper are as follows: （1）From the perspective of group as a whole, studying the relationship between debt guarantees and audit pricing of listed companies within the group can provide a new theoretical explanation for the relationship between debt guarantees and audit pricing of listed companies to subsidiaries. （2）Mining the basic path of debt guarantees for subsidiaries of listed companies to improve audit pricing can reveal the deep logic of listed companies’ debt guarantee on subsidiaries’ audit pricing. （3）The investigation of cross-sectional characteristics of listed companies, such as the nature of property rights, the way of debt guarantees, the level of financialization and the quality of internal control, can provide important empirical evidence for understanding the constraints between debt guarantees and audit pricing. It is helpful for listed companies to prevent and control the risk of debt guarantees, and provide important decision-making basis for CPA audit pricing.