We interview 24 very experienced auditors about how they audit complex accounting estimates such as fair values and impairments and what problems they experience in the process. We find that auditors overwhelmingly choose to audit the details of management's estimate rather than use other...

Auditors experience significant problems auditing complex accounting estimates, and this increasingly puts financial reporting quality at risk. Based on analyses of the specific errors that auditors commit, we propose that auditors need to be able to think more broadly and incorporate...

Auditors experience significant problems auditing complex accounting estimates, and this increasingly puts financial reporting quality at risk. Based on analyses of the specific errors that auditors commit, we propose that auditors need to be able to think more broadly and incorporate...

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) recently suggested that auditors' lack of specific fraud planning documentation has led auditors to devote insufficient attention to fraud risks in subsequent audit work. Guided by Support Theory, we experimentally investigate how the...

Auditors have difficulty evaluating the assumptions underlying management's estimates. One source of these problems is that auditors appear to dismiss evidence contradicting management's assumptions because their initial preference to support management's accounting biases their preliminary...