Our survey and statistical analyses of company fee data suggest that fee disclosures are not prepared consistently and are not without bias. If fee disclosures cannot be trusted, what is the value of the fee disclosure mandates?

Publicly available fee disclosures have been used by investors and regulators to assess various matters, including the quality of a company's audit, financial reporting, and corporate governance. We find that many companies' disclosures are insufficient, standardized, or inconsistently prepared....

We investigate the relationship between Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspection outcomes and auditors' use of structured audit technologies (SATs) by conducting interviews with audit partners of firms inspected annually by the PCAOB, surveying triennially-inspected auditing...

We investigate whether enforcement is influenced by politics by comparing the severity of PCAOB sanctions of individual CPAs to the severity of related state-level disciplinary actions imposed by boards of accountancy (BOAs). Our results provide evidence that when responding to PCAOB sanctions,...

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) accelerated the rotation of the lead audit engagement partner and extended the required cooling-off period. SOX also extended rotation requirements to concurring partners. Consequences of accelerated rotation and extended cooling-off have yet to be explored in depth,...