Evidence about the effect of voluntary audits on the cost of debt is mixed, and there is no research about the effects of mandatory audits and the non-compliance with the audit requirement. Using a sample of Spanish SMEs, where some companies are exempt from audit and some are mandatorily...

Evidence about the relation between earnings management and voluntary audits is scarce, and there is no research about the effectiveness of mandatory audits to improve earnings quality. Using a sample of Spanish SMEs, where some companies are mandatorily audited and some are exempt from audit,...

The aim of this study is to test the level of convergence between the IFRS for SMEs and the Spanish GAAP. To do this, we develop a Convergence Index with the full IFRS, which we apply the local GAAP and the IFRS for SMEs. Results show that the Convergence Index is considerably greater for the...

Previous literature shows mixed evidence on the effect of discretionary accruals and auditing on the cost of debt. We hypothesize that, in the SMEs setting, auditing can act as a substitute for accruals quality, and thus audits may mitigate the effect of discretionary accruals on the cost of...