Why do reputable audit firms fail? This paper provides a formal theory of auditor reputation formation. Even under well-functioning reputation mechanisms, an auditor with a strong reputation has incentives to shirk. Above a threshold-reputation, the market belief about the auditor's ability...

Top management faces two key organizational design choices: (1) how much authority to delegate to lower-level managers, and (2) how to design incentive compensation to ensure that these managers do not misuse their discretion. Although theoretical accounting literature has emphasized the joint...

We analyze optimal correlation levels in information technologies when multiple signals are available as contracting mechanisms within the principal-agent paradigm. We identify sufficient conditions ensuring that uniformly lower-correlation functions (in action levels) are preferred, as well as...

At the heart of decentralization lies the notion that tasks are delegated by owners to managers who possess superior local information. The extent of this information asymmetry is often an endogenous construct, as it is influenced by the owner’s choice of internal accounting systems and the...

It is common practice for firms in a variety of industries to specify bonus pools that are available for distribution among a group of managers. While the actual size of the bonus pool may vary with the realization of certain financial metrics, for example, earnings growth or...