According to accounting and auditing standards, external auditors and management must both independently monitor goodwill balance for any impairment. Therefore, goodwill impairment may contain valuable incremental information about the CEO's ability which the board can utilize for CEO retention...

Using abnormal audit fees to capture any added charges associated with incremental audit effort beyond the effort level needed under normal or expected circumstances, we find that the incremental audit effort is positively associated with goodwill to total assets. Additionally, when goodwill is...