Concerns regarding a lack of competition in the market for public-company audits focus on Big Four audit firms. Little concern has been raised regarding Non-Big Four firms, yet we know little about competition and barriers to entry in this market. Prior studies only consider competition from...

Following International Accounting Standards (IAS) No. 39, Taiwan implemented the No. 34 and No. 36 Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) that regulate the measurement and disclosure of financial instruments, respectively. Both IAS and Taiwan SFAS allowed companies to reclassifyʺ...

Utilizing the Finnish setting, this paper examines the association between industry specialization of an individual audit partner and the quality of earnings reported for privately-held companies. Rules in Finland require that the name(s) of the audit engagement partner(s) appear in audit...

This study aims to examine the effect of corporate governance mechanisms on audit reporting. Whereas the specific purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the number of audit committees, the role of independent (non-executive) board members, institutional ownership, and ownership...

This paper examines the antecedents of non-financial audit quality in the novel setting of sustainability assurance (SA). We proxy SA quality by a content analysis of the information disclosed in approximately 1,200 publicly available SA statements issued by a panel of G500 global firms in the...

We examine the relation between industry specialist auditors and cost of debt financing using a national and city level industry specialist framework. Consistent with the assumption that higher audit quality is associated with lower information risk, which benefits clients in raising debt...

Regulators and economists are often concerned with mergers and acquisitions (M&A) because of their potential to reduce competition by decreasing the number of suppliers and consolidating market share. However, Stigler (1955) points out that in certain situations, mergers may increase competition...

We investigate the effects of engagement auditor industry specialization on stock price crash risk. Although research on audit partners has been growing, we are not aware of any prior studies that investigate partner-level specialization and crash risk. Using a large sample of Chinese stocks...

Prior studies document that firms having material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting adjust more discretionary accruals in financial reporting process than other firms. This study examines the influence of industry-specialist audits on accrual management behavior of firms...

We use data from China to examine whether regulations that limit management influence over auditors improve audit quality. China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) issued two rules in 2004 aimed at improving audit quality for state-owned...