Focusing on the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand in 1998, we document increased audit quality (measured … by earnings quality of the clients) for the merged firm and other big-X auditors 1 during the post-merger period because … and 2) the value relevance of earnings has significantly increased. Furthermore, we find evidence that in the post-merger …

after small audit firm merger events. Specifically, we find that PCAOB-identified audit deficiencies and the absolute value … primarily among the new clients obtained through the merger, as well as when the acquiring firm is growing rapidly, suggesting a …

Listed companies commonly appoint their incumbent annual auditors to audit a target company during a merger and …

We examine the effects of the 1998 merger of Price Waterhouse (PW) and Coopers & Lybrand (CL) on the audit quality of …, and clients' accrual quality. At the firm-level, we find that the merger increased audit quality for PwC relative to the ….e., offices in cities where both PW and CL had separate offices prior to the merger. Further, our findings suggest that although …