Comparative Research In Performance Auditing Of American And Swedish Government

The development of auditing has a close relationship with the economic and social development, which is accompanied by the development of the fiduciary responsibility relations and the expansion of its connotation and extension .After World War Two, both theoretical and practical auditing exhibited tremendous development. The traditional audit of financial transactions is replaced by the performance audit where the government audit has reached a great advancement and the nature of the audit presents a great transformation too. Meanwhile, audit covers a much more comprehensive range, in which case, it becomes a more important issue. However, few people step in this area and papers are seldom published. The developing practice of performance auditing brings a challenge not only to the audit theory, but also to its further development. The world economy environment is very flexible. As a security measure of the social and economic health, performance audit must play its appropriate role of promoting sustainable development and improving the efficiency of resources to maintain the state security. To further understand the audit nature and the change of audit function, we need to apply the updated principles of economics, such as theories about demand and supply, to study the transformation, goals, nature and the functional mechanism of the changing government performance audit, which will better direct the practical audit.The performance audit in the United States is the typical representative of Legislation Model, which is also the first country to carry out performance audit in the world; the original performance audit system in Sweden applies administrative framework, which change to the legislation mode on July 1st, 2003 and maintains a fast development. Both America and Sweden accumulated many successful experiences and effective methods of the government performance audit. Currently, about 40% of the audit business in Swedish National Audit Department belongs to the performance audit; 60 audit projects including finance, education, environment, health, pension, culture, foreign affairs, agriculture, transportation, government investment, public service and private partnership are completed every year and achieves prominent results. First, social resources are saved. Second, government efficiency is improved. Third, government management is more effective. About 90%audit business of the American National Audit Department belongs to the performance audit business. In 2006, its audit department created the value of 51 billion US dollars. The input-output rate is 1:105, that is, every investment of 1 dollar in the GAO will receive 105 dollars'rewards. Meanwhile, it also published almost one thousand reports and announcements and made 2700 pieces of advices to the government, four fifths of which are executed. According to GAO's documents, GAO also brought more than 1300 benefits that could not be counted by financial calculation to assist legislation formulation and improve public services. In the past ten years, tax income has increased by 100 billion US dollars.This article does a comparative research in the US and Sweden government audit in order to induce the experiences through their audit system evolution, which will provide references to China's practical and theoretical government performance audit. Compared with the US and Sweden government performance audit, performance audit in China starts late and is still at its preliminary stage, which brings out the urge to develop the performance audit theory and practical research in China. As the continuous progress of the economic globalization and China's social, political, economic and democratic development, revolution in government performance audit is required to march with the times and be ready to fit into this new environment.This article is divided into three parts, seven chapters. The first part is the foundation of this study, including the first to the third chapter; the second part is the focus of the study, including the forth to the sixth chapter; chapter seven of the third part is the summary of the preceding analysis.The first chapter is the introduction to our goals, topic selection; research objects, main ideas, innovation and defects.The second chapter is a general analysis of government performance audit, which describes its formation ,development, system,objectives, content,scope, functions and roles.The third chapter is the relative theory of the performance audit, where the theory of the major motives in performance audit is the source of performance audit; the theory of system transformation, institutional demand and supply is the theoretical basis for revolution of the performance audit. Relationships among the theoretical structure, nature, assumptions, audit objectives, audit criteria, audit information, audit control of the performance audit is made in order to demonstrate the ground work for later discussion.The fourth chapter is the comparative analysis of the performance audit transformation between the US and the Swedish governments, which comparatively discusses the formation, characteristics, development process, present status and the effective factors of various developing stages of both countries aiming to identify the influential factors in common and in difference.The fifth chapter provides the comparative analysis of the operating mechanism between American and Swedish government performance audit, which mainly carries out the comparative analysis of systematic construction and functions, personnel arrangement and responsibilities, operating mechanism and legal basis and audit objectives and targets of performance audit between the two countries. Through case study, common feature and differences of the operating mechanism of the two countries is offered.Chapter six is the comparative analysis of the functions and effectiveness of the two countries'government performance audit. By means of the specific cases, we will find the functional features both in common and in difference. It also provides a comparative analysis of economic, social, external and the security maintenance effects to confirm the government performance audit is effective.The last chapter concludes this paper and makes implications, which states the achievements of this paper. The first part sums up the success and defects of the performance audit of both American and Swedish governments, and provides our own thoughts. The second part analyzes the status of China's government performance audit and put forward its problems. By referring the successful experience and the shortcomings of the US and Sweden performance audit, we provide some reasonable suggestion to carry out government performance audit in China, trying to achieve the concept"practice to theory, theory directs practice, practical and theoretical analyses are combined"...