We investigate how the mandated disclosure of Key Audit Matters (KAMs) and management disclosures in the financial statement footnotes affect auditors’ perceptions of their accountability and their subsequent fair value decisions. We find a substitution effect between KAMs disclosures and...

In 2019, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) expanded audit reports by requiring auditors to provide a critical audit matters (CAM) disclosure in the independent audit report, based on Auditing Standards (AS) 3101, The Auditor’s Report on an Audit of Financial Statements When...

Conventional wisdom suggests that audit risk disclosure improves the overall efficiency because investors are more informed of a client's financial performance. This view, while intuitive, ignores a potential externality of audit risk disclosure on auditor competence. We consider a two-period...

Financial restatements have significant implications for auditor-client relationships. We estimate that a restatement increases the odds of an auditor resignation dramatically. Restatements involving fraud, reversing profit to loss and those disclosed in press releases appear to drive the...

We use incremental and joint implementation of multiple SOX-based control effectiveness disclosure and audit mandates to assess relative performance of alternatives for small U.S. public companies. Using data from several low and high effort management disclosure and audit regimes implemented...

Recent increases in the occurrence and magnitude of goodwill impairment charges highlight the increasing importance of the role of the auditor in goodwill accounting. This study examines the association between disclosures about the fair value measurement of goodwill and audit fees. We find that...

This research investigates the association between discretionary disaggregation in mandatory risk disclosures, audit conservatism and the implied cost of capital (ICOE). Based on a sample of 141 financial firms from six GCC countries over the 2007-2011 period, we find that the ICOE is...

Auditor resignations are considered more negative signals than auditor dismissals, but firms' self-reported distinction between the two may not offer a complete or reliable representation of the nature of the auditor change. 8-K regulations require the disclosure of the adjournment of an audit...

Regulators have expressed concerns that investors misunderstand auditors’ responsibility to “read and consider” other information in the annual report (e.g., the MD&A), often assuming the entire annual report has been audited. This is particularly a concern in the U.S. where auditors do...