We introduce some new econometric tests and techniques for identifying and overcoming the problem of weak instruments in the context of joint provision of audit and non-audit fees. We use this context because identifying appropriate instruments is difficult due to the lack of theoretical...

Using a large sample of firms that report under mandatory IFRS from 51 countries, this study examines the association between conditional conservatism, institutional quality, and Big 4 audits. We hypothesize and find that the degree of conditional conservatism is higher in countries with better...

Prior research has examined audit pricing for publicly held firms and provided some evidence of a Big 8 premium in pricing. We investigate audit pricing among private firms for the first time, and we compare audit pricing for private and listed clients. The relatively great degree of dispersion...

In this paper, we examine whether the industry-specialist audit fee premium and scale discounts are attributable to financial statement complexity. Financial statement complexity is measured using a combination of the number of Arabic numerals, the number of words, and the readability of 10-K...