CPA Australia-University of Melbourne Annual Research Lecture
Stephen Taylor will deliver the 81st CPA Australia – University of Melbourne Annual Research Lecture, the longest-running lecture series at the University. This is a digital event and will be streamed from 12.00pm on Wednesday 30 September with a live Q&A.
Registrations for this event have closed. The recording from today's event will be made available to registrants via email next week. It will also be published on our website here.
Does the audit market need more regulation? The role of evidence versus intuition
Recent examples of alleged audit failure in the UK (e.g., Thomas Cook, Ted Baker), Australia (e.g., Vocation, Quintis, Hastie) and elsewhere (e.g., Wirecard) have resulted in calls for new regulations directed at audit firms, and the broader market for services provided by these firms. Yet it is not that long ago that significant regulatory changes were made (e.g., mandatory partner rotation, limits on selling other services to audit clients, limits on audit firm tenure) in response to similar types of concerns. This lecture will compare past regulatory intervention with proposed actions, and ask whether such actions are based on solid evidence, or are primarily dependent on "intuitive beliefs" promoted by politicians, regulators and the financial press. By contrasting these proposed reforms (such as splitting the Big 4 into separate audit and consulting firms) with the implications that follow from an evidence-based approach, the lecture will highlight the critical need for rigorous evidence in formulating and evaluating regulatory policy for audit markets, and capital market activity more generally.
Stephen Taylor is UTS Distinguished Professor of Accounting at the University of Technology Sydney, and is also a member of the Australian Accounting Standards Board. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. During 2016-17, Stephen served as the inaugural Australian Business Deans’ Council Research Scholar, a position focused on improving the quality and impact of research in Australian business schools, as well as research training. From 2009-2015 inclusive, Stephen served as Associate Dean-Research in the UTS Business School, culminating in their ranking as equal third in Business and Economics in the 2015 ERA results. For the 4 years 2012-2015, Stephen also served as Chair of the representative group of Australian and New Zealand business ADRs, BARDsNet. Stephen has been a member of the ERA panel for Economics and Business for the 2015 and 2018 assessments.
The lecture is jointly presented by the Department of Accounting and CPA Australia.
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