Section 301 of SOX implicitly assumes that audit committees can independently determine audit fees. Critics of Section 301 have questioned this assumption, in particular, and the efficacy of Section 301, more generally. In response, the SEC issued a concept release in 2015 calling for public...

We examine whether Big 4 auditors and non-Big 4 auditors maintain similar or different levels of financial reporting quality for private firms. DeAngelo (1981) suggests that litigation and reputation considerations incentivize Big 4 auditors to deliver higher audit quality than non-Big 4...

Using a sample of firms from France, where the law requires the use of two auditors, we study the effect of auditor pair composition on audit quality by examining a specific account, goodwill impairment. We document that firms audited by a Big 4-non-Big 4 auditor pair (BS) are more likely to...

Using an international sample of firms from 31 countries, we study the relation between auditor quality and corporate tax aggressiveness. Using an indicator variable for tax aggressiveness when the firm's corporate tax avoidance measure is within the top quintile of each country-industry...