Research On The Influence Of Government Competition On Audit Efficiency

With the increasingly important role of government auditing in the construction of the national governance system,the public has higher demands for the independence of auditing institutions and the effectiveness of auditing.However,along with the increasing task of government auditing,the issue of its own efficiency is often overlooked and lacks objective evaluation criteria.The factors influencing the efficiency of local audit institutions are complex.In addition to internal influences such as the operational capacity of government auditors,audit initiative and audit reporting procedures,external influences such as the institutional environment,the legal environment and the political and economic environment also deserve attention.So,does horizontal competition among local governments due to promotion tournaments have an impact on the efficiency of government auditing? If so,what would be the mechanism of its effect? And considering geographical factors,does the impact of local government competition on audit efficiency have spatial characteristics? These are all questions that need to be focused on and addressed in the current audit system development.Based on a review of the existing literature,this thesis analyses the intrinsic links between local government competition,the institutional environment and the efficiency of government audit agencies by applying the "government competition theory","fiscal decentralisation theory","audit immune system theory" and "spatial measurement theory".In the empirical research part,this thesis takes the data of local audit institutions from 30 provinces in China(excluding Hong Kong,Macao,Taiwan and Tibet)as the research sample during the period of 2010-2018.In the empirical research section,this thesis takes the data of local auditing authorities in 30 provinces(excluding Hong Kong,Macao,Taiwan and Tibet)in China from 2010-2018 as the research sample.Firstly,an input-output indicator system of government audit efficiency was constructed,using the BCC model and Malmquist index to measure government audit efficiency through horizontal static comparisons in the same period and vertical dynamic comparisons in different periods.Secondly,based on the efficiency measurement results,the spatial quartile maps of different periods were used to analyse the spatial and temporal evolutionary characteristics of audit efficiency,and its spatial correlation was analysed based on the Moran scatter plot.Finally,a suitable spatial econometric model is selected to test the impact of local government competition on the efficiency of audit agencies and the moderating effect of the institutional environment,under three spatial weighting matrices.The findings of this thesis are as follows: firstly,government audit efficiency has significant spatial clustering characteristics and positive spillover effects;secondly,horizontal competition among local governments has a suppressive effect on audit agency efficiency and efficiency spillover,that is,the more intense horizontal competition among local governments,the lower audit efficiency in the province and surrounding provinces;finally,the institutional environment can alleviate the suppressive effect of intergovernmental competition on audit efficiency.Based on the above findings,this thesis purposefully proposes diversified paths to enhance audit efficiency from three aspects: audit technology,government competition and institutional environment,with a view to providing references and lessons for the sustainable development of local government competition and auditor efficiency.