We use hand-collected audit partner data to show that approximately one-third of clients are audited by partners located more than 100 kilometers away from the clients' corporate headquarters. We explore the role that partner location plays in audits by first modeling how it affects the matching...

We find that non-Big 4 audit offices with greater awareness of SEC enforcement are more likely to issue first-time going concern reports to distressed clients; where SEC “awareness” is measured using (1) audit office proximity to SEC regional offices, and (2) proximity to specific SEC...