Fair Value Complexity and the Audit Risk

Abstract

This paper checks if the auditors in an emergent context, where the fair value (FV) concept, its implementation and audit are relatively new, are aware of the estimation risk induced by the valuation process (the FV provider and FV disclosure), depending on the quality of internal control (IC). An experiment was applied to a group of auditors and master students, using two elements pertaining to FV reporting: “Valuation attributes and sensitivity of data”, respectively “Methods, assumptions and model”. This experiment revealed that: (1) FV audit risk is lower when the estimation is made by an external, instead of an internal valuator; (2) the master’s students, compared to more experienced professional auditors, manifest an overconfidence in the external Valuation Report in terms of valuation attributes, data availability and solutions adopted to test the sensitivity of value; (3) the audit risk is lower when the valuator is external and hence the auditors verify in detail the information provided in the Valuation Report as inputs and methods applied; (4) when IC is strong as quality, the verification of methods, assumptions and model induces for auditors a higher risk than the other FV disclosed component, valuation attributes and sensitivity of data, in the case of management estimation.