The Economic Consequences of Voluntary Internal Control Audit:Empirical Study Based on Audit Delay

Using manually collected data on internal control audit report of A-share companies from 2005 to 2008,this paper examines how the voluntary audit of internal control influence audit delay.Based on the empirical evidences,unqualified audit opinion of internal control is associated with higher audit efficiency and shorter audit delay,i.e.,the implementation of internal control audit is rewardable.However,the first implementation of internal control audit is not associated with longer audit delay.This may be attributed to the cause that the first implementation of internal control audit needs more audit work,but the first implementation of internal control audit itself means higher quality of internal control.Our empirical evidence help regulators to evaluate the pros and cons of internal control audit,thus providing policy support to establish internal control audit system in the future.