In this paper, we examine religiosity as one determinant of tax avoidance by corporate and individual taxpayers. Prior research suggests a relation between religiosity and risk aversion. Because aggressive tax avoidance strategies involve significant uncertainty and possible penalties and damage...

In recent years, policy makers have expressed concern about the risks posed by audit market concentration (i.e., high market shares for the dominant Big 4 audit firms) for audit quality. In this paper, we examine the relation between concentration at the local (i.e., metropolitan statistical...

In this paper, we examine audit quality for Big 4 and Second-tier auditors during 2003-06. We utilize the auditor's propensity to issue a going concern audit report for distressed clients as a measure of audit quality. In addition, since the purpose of an audit is to improve financial reporting...

We examine whether the public disclosure of a client cyber-breach hurts the reputation of the local engagement office of the incumbent auditor. Prior research suggests that alleged client misconduct (even if unrelated to accounting) can hurt the auditor’s reputation and bargaining position...

We examine the impact of the initial PCAOB international inspection in a country on the Big 4/non-Big 4 audit quality differential (the so-called Big N effect) for non-US-listed foreign public companies. Our findings point to the initial PCAOB international inspection narrowing the Big N effect...

In this paper, we examine the relation between auditor litigation risk and abnormal accruals over the 1989-2007 time period. We address potential endogeneity in prior studies by jointly modeling abnormal accruals and litigation risk in a simultaneous equation system. Our findings suggest that...

The objective of CEO compensation is to better align CEO-shareholder interests by inducing CEOs to make more optimal (albeit risky) investment decisions. However, recent research suggests that these incentives have a significant down-side(i.e., they motivate executives to manipulate reported...