Distributed Ledgers and Secure Multiparty Computation for Financial Reporting and Auditing
中文摘要
为理解分布式账本技术对财务报告与审计带来的颠覆及其影响,我们在一个统一模型中分析企业错报、审计师监督与竞争以及监管政策。用于财务报告与审计的联盟区块链(federated blockchain)不仅能提高对私有数据库中交易的验证效率,还能通过隐私保护计算协议提升跨链验证的效率。尽管区块链具有潜在收益,但企业的私人激励和审计师的先发优势可能导致低效的采用不足,或形成偏向大型审计师的部分采用。尽管监管者可以帮助协调技术的采用,但企业对交易伙伴的内生选择仍可能导致采用失败。我们的模型还为进一步研究分布式账本与安全多方计算在财务报告中使用的成本与影响提供了初步框架,包括对裁量性审计的正溢出效应,以及应由谁承担采用成本。
Abstract
To understand the disruption and implications of distributed ledger technologies for financial reporting and auditing, we analyze firm misreporting, auditor monitoring and competition, and regulatory policy in a unified model. A federated blockchain for financial reporting and auditing can improve verification efficiency not only for transactions in private databases but also for cross-chain verifications through privacy-preserving computation protocols. Despite the potential benefit of blockchains, private incentives for firms and first-mover advantages for auditors can create inefficient under-adoption or partial adoption that favors larger auditors. Although a regulator can help coordinate the adoption of technology, endogenous choice of transaction partners by firms can still lead to adoption failure. Our model also provides an initial framework for further studies of the costs and implications of the use of distributed ledgers and secure multiparty computation in financial reporting, including the positive spillover to discretionary auditing and who should bear the cost of adoption.