We identify connected auditors as those who attended the same university as the executives of their clients. Using manually collected data from China, we find that connected auditors are more likely to issue favorable audit opinions, especially for financially distressed clients. Moreover,...

Exploiting the staggered state-level adoption of the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act (IBBEA), we examine whether and how banking deregulation affects firms’ auditor choices. We find that an exogenous increase in the degree of interstate branch banking deregulation...