This paper addresses the question whether voluntary adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is associated with lower earnings management. Ball et al. (Journal of Accounting and Economics, 36(1-3), pp. 235-270, 2003) argue that adopting high quality standards might be a...

This paper contributes to the recent literature on financial reporting quality in private (i.e. non-listed) companies (Ball and Shivakumar, 2005; Burgstahler et al., 2006) by examining whether in these types of companies Big 4 audit firms, as high quality auditors, provide a constraint on earnings...

Anglo-American countries like the US and the UK allow companies to switch auditors every year. In contrast, some continental European countries restrict auditor switching by allowing only renewable long-term audit mandates. This paper aims to analyse the impact of renewable long-term audit...