Focusing on the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand in 1998, we document increased audit quality (measured … by earnings quality of the clients) for the merged firm and other big-X auditors 1 during the post-merger period because … and 2) the value relevance of earnings has significantly increased. Furthermore, we find evidence that in the post-merger …

merger. The microstructure of the audit industry provides further insights—Non-Big4 audit firms reduce fees after the merger …

. This effect is more pronounced when the acquirer in a merger is an international Big 4 auditor or when a merger leads to a …

transfer on audit performance. For each audit firm merger, we sort all client companies into the treatment and control groups … based on the relative industry expertise of their auditors before the merger. We employ a difference-in-difference approach … between the less and more specialized auditors after the merger. Together, our findings suggest that industry …

after small audit firm merger events. Specifically, we find that PCAOB-identified audit deficiencies and the absolute value … primarily among the new clients obtained through the merger, as well as when the acquiring firm is growing rapidly, suggesting a …

reduced audit quality following the merger. These questions are important for a balanced investigation of a firm merger … because regulators focus more on the downside of a merger than on its upside. Using a merger of audit firms in Hong Kong as a … setting, this paper reports that clients of the merged firm have shorter audit report lag post-merger in the property industry …

We examine efficiency improvement associated with audit firm mergers. Our analysis is made possible by a unique dataset … arising from horizontal mergers. However, enhanced efficiency does not necessarily reduce audit fees. Instead, we find an …

to mergers broadly, and to study several audit market dynamics. Unlike most merger settings that primarily allow … that the number of clients switching to the acquiring auditor increases following the merger, however we find that this is … evidence that the merger generates a sustained gain in market share or significant increase in aggregate fees. Our study is …