Following large-scale auditor consolidations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, along with Arthur Andersen's collapse in 2001, the global audit market has become highly concentrated during the past 30 years. Many interested parties, including regulators, researchers, and practitioners, disagree...

Conventional wisdom suggests that partner identification disclosure can improve audit quality, because it may enhance transparency and individual accountability. Building on a two-period assignment model, we show that under certain conditions, the disclosure can distort partner client assignment...