Using a large sample of privately held Korean companies that are not required to obtain an external audit, this paper examines the value of voluntary external audits of financial statements with respect to the cost of debt. We find that private companies with an external audit pay a...

In Korea, the regulatory authority designates external auditors for firms that are deemed to have strong incentives and/or great potential for opportunistic earnings management, and mandates these firms to replace their incumbent auditors with new designated auditors and to retain them for a...

Purpose – The primary objective of this paper is to examine the association between the seven human-resource features (spanning three major themes: qualifications and credentials; business and initial public offering (IPO) launch experience; and diversity) of independent audit committee members...