Conventional wisdom holds that joint audits would improve audit quality by enhancing audit evidence precision, because “Two heads are better than one,” and by enhancing auditor independence, because it is more expensive for a company to “bribe” two audit firms than one. Our paper...

Conventional wisdom suggests that partner identification disclosure can improve audit quality, because it may enhance transparency and individual accountability. Building on a two-period assignment model, we show that under certain conditions, the disclosure can distort partner client assignment...

This paper analyzes the impact of Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)-type regulatory oversight on audit quality, audit value, and the audit market under different legal systems. Conventional wisdom suggests that regulatory oversight may be just a simple addition to a legal system...

We develop a measure to capture an audit firm's competitive position in a local audit market based on the transaction costs of changing audit firms included in DeAngelo's (1981) multi-period audit pricing model. Our competition measure reflects the size difference between the largest audit firm...

We examine whether auditors are sensitive to their clients' compliance with environmental regulations. Under current auditing standards, auditors' responsibilities with respect to the detection and reporting of violations of environmental regulations by their clients are limited and quite vague....