【正文】 dit mittees, audit mittees with higher proportions of financial experts, and audit mittees that meet more frequently to be more concerned about the quality of the firm?s internal control a result, we expect a positive relation between these three governance factors and the inclusion of an MRIC. SAMPLE Our sample is from the period preceding both SOX and the Report of the Blue Ribbon Committee on Improving the Effectiveness of Corporate Audit Committees BRC 1999 . The BRC Report spurred a heightened interest in corporate governance and might have precipitated panies to include an MRIC in their annual reports due to external pressures. The reaction of registrants to SEC and other quasiregulatory initiatives is interesting but differs from the focus of this paper. We are interested in the relation between firm characteristics and voluntary disclosure that existed before the issuance of the BRC Report. We select our sample from the population of firms with 1998 fiscal yearend data included on the July 1999 Compact D/SEC disc. There are approximately 11,900 panies included on this disc that have a 1998 yearend. We exclude panies with over $5 billion in total assets because prior research indicates that a substantial majority of very large panies include an MRIC in their annual report Raghunandan and Rama 1994 . We also exclude panies with less than $250 million in assets as prior research indicates that very small panies rarely include an MRIC McMullen et al. 1996 . We are seeking a sample with reasonable variation in whether or not an MRIC is included in the annual report。 no reports include an auditor attestation。中文 4225 字 外 文 翻 譯 外文出處 Auditing: A Journal of Practice amp。 Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies 2020 . While SOX made 404 Reports mandatory, management reports on internal control MRIC were voluntarily included in corporate annual reports prior to SOX. Since including an MRIC in the annual report potentially increased management?s liability exposure under both Rules 10b5 and 14a9 of the securities laws, MRICs were presumably included to signal differences in internal control quality across panies. In this paper, we examine the relation between firm characteristics and the voluntary inclusion of an MRIC in 1998 annual reports. Prior literature suggests that a high proportion of Fortune 100 panies report on controls in their annual reports Raghunandan and Rama 1994 , while a low proportion of smaller panies report on controls McMullen et al. 1996 . Hence, we examine the relation between firm characteristics and the inclusion of a voluntary MRIC for midsized panies because we are looking for a sample that will provide us with reasonable variation with respect to internal control reporting. We also provide descriptive information about the nature and content of these voluntary reports, and we pare and contrast them with the 404 reports. Our analysis includes 397 annual reports ?led by ?rms with total assets between $250 million and $5 billion. We ?nd that 36 percent of midsized panies include an MRIC in their 1998 annual report, and that the likelihood of an MRIC 1 increases with ?rm size, audit mittee meeting frequency, institutional ownership, and ine growth, and 2 decreases with sales growth. None of the reports mention any reportable conditions or material weaknesses。 Abbott et al. 2020 . Since strong internal controls are expected to improve the reliability of financial reporting Public Oversight Board [POB] 1993。我們發(fā)現，銷售額快速增長的公司都不太愿意提供內部控制管 理報告。由于證券法 10b5 規(guī)則和 14a9 規(guī)則，如果在年度報告中包括內部控制管理報告可能增加管理層的披露責任，各個公司的內部控制管理報告可 能在內部控制質量方面有較大的信號差異。不到一半（百分之四十）的報告包括了關于有 效控制的聲明，并且只有三個樣本報告中包括了用于評估控制方法有效性的標準。所有這些原因是旨在減少財務報表使用者對公司財務報告質量中的不確定性。例如，在內部控制管理報告的聲明中經常包含一項沒有效力的聲明“公司保持的內部會計制度是旨在合理保證財務記錄的可靠性，保證編制的財務報表的合理性。由于被訴訟揭