We examine whether firms with managers that have prior internal audit experience are less likely to manage earnings. We find that firms with managers that have internal audit experience are associated with less overall earnings management, driven by lower real earnings management. Importantly,...

We conduct a meta-analysis of the association between audit committee (AC) independence and financial reporting quality (FRQ). Although we cannot reliably aggregate results across studies in a statistical sense because of inconsistencies in defining FRQ and the absence of replication studies,...

This study examines whether audit committee and board characteristics are related to earnings management by the firm. A negative relation is found between audit committee independence and abnormal accruals. A negative relation is also found between board independence and abnormal accruals....

The association of a country's investor protection regime with the quality of reported earnings is examined for a large sample of firms from 42 countries. Three attributes of earnings are evaluated: the magnitude of the association of a country's investor protection regime with the quality of...

In this paper we investigate whether auditors' decisions can be explained by accruals quality. Using alternative measures of accruals quality developed by prior researchers, we find that a firm with poorer accruals quality is associated with higher audit fees, a greater likelihood of receiving a...

Using publicly available data from annual reports, we find that SEC rule changes (33-8128 and 33-8644) that impose time pressure on the audits of registered firms have a negative impact on earnings quality, which we interpret as evidence of lower audit quality. Consistent with our predictions,...

This paper reports descriptive evidence about how managers attempt to manage earnings, based on a sample of 515 earnings-management attempts obtained from a survey of 253 experienced auditors (and also analyzed by Nelson et al. 2002). We classify attempts first according to primary approach:...

This paper reports descriptive evidence about how managers attempt to manage earnings, based on a sample of 515 earnings-management attempts obtained from a survey of 253 experienced auditors (and also analyzed by Nelson et al. 2002). We classify attempts first according to primary approach:...

Corporate hiring of former audit personnel to fill key financial positions is a practice that has attracted attention from the media, the accounting profession, and regulators. The concern is that the former external auditor who now holds a key position with the client may be able to circumvent...

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) proscribes so-called “affiliated hires” of financial executives. More specifically, SOX requires that firms wait at least one year before hiring an individual recently employed as a member of the firm’s external audit team. The intent of the regulation...