Using a large sample of audit client firms, this paper investigates whether and how the geographic proximity between auditor and client affects audit quality proxied by accrual-based earnings quality. We define an auditor as a local auditor if the auditor's practicing office is located in the...

In Korea, the regulatory authority designates external auditors for firms that are deemed to have strong incentives and/or great potential for opportunistic earnings management, and mandates these firms to replace their incumbent auditors with new designated auditors and to retain them for a...

This paper shows that politically connected non-Big 4/5 auditors are associated with lower levels of audit quality (proxied by the level of abnormal non-core earnings and the proportion of modified audit opinions) than firms with no political connections. We also show that more economically...