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Statistically Incoherent Hypothesis Tests In Auditing, D. J. Johnstone

Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers

A classical, Neyman-Pearson hypothesis test results in a decision (choice of action) justified not by any assessment of sample evidence, but by the pre-specified frequencies with which that procedure generates errors of the two possible types. By applying such a test in auditing, the hypothesis tested is accepted or rejected without the auditor having to consider whether the data observed confirms (in any degree), or disconfirms, that hypothesis. In contrast with the classical framework, the Bayesian approach is to evaluate the probability of the hypothesis tested conditional on the data observed, and then to make a decision on the basis …