Purpose: Setting audit fees is a persistent source of stress for auditors who must, on one hand, comply with the increasing government regulations that generally cause costs to rise; and on the other hand, respond to client pressures to keep audit fees down. In the post-scandal environment of...

Purpose – This paper revisits the Reynolds and Francis’ (2001) study via the use of a more current dataset, incorporation of improvements into the accrual model and the use of actual fee data vs estimates. Using the improved analyses, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether more...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to replicate Richardson et al. ’s (2005) study on how accrual components’ reliability affects earnings persistence and whether investors anticipate the lower earnings persistence through stock return. In this study, the authors use more recent data to...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine whether Andersen’s audit quality in the five years preceding its collapse lagged that of other Big-Five auditors. Design/methodology/approach – This paper compares Andersen’s audit quality and the other Big-Five auditors using five methodologies,...