We analyze whether information asymmetry affects three major aspects of the audit process using an instrumental variables research design that exploits exogenous increases in information asymmetry stemming from brokerage house mergers and closures. Consistent with our predictions, we find that a...

As part of planning and performing financial statement audits, auditors must assess their clients' risk. Assessed risk permeates the audit process, driving decisions regarding client retention, audit pricing, the extent of audit testing, and the nature of auditors' written opinions. Although...

We use hand-collected audit partner data to show that approximately one-third of clients are audited by partners located more than 100 kilometers away from the clients' corporate headquarters. We explore the role that partner location plays in audits by first modeling how it affects the matching...

Literature to date reveals relatively little about the role of expertise in auditor selection beyond basic preferences for Big 4 and industry specialist auditors. We hypothesize that audit committees whose members have no Big 4 auditing experience are likely to struggle when interviewing...

This study investigates whether audit litigants act as if they believe jurors will associate auditor-provided nonaudit services (NAS) with impaired auditor independence, and thus substandard auditor performance. Using GAAP-based financial statement restatements disclosed from 2001 – 2007 as an...

This study investigates whether auditor quality and audit committee expertise are associated with improved financial disclosure timeliness as measured by the duration of a financial statement restatement's “dark period.” The restatement dark period represents the length of time between a...

In this study, we use a survey instrument to obtain perspectives from over 700 auditors about present-day audit workloads and the relationship between audit workloads, audit quality, and job satisfaction. Our findings indicate that auditors are working, on average, five hours per week above the...