Are high audit fees a signal that the auditor exerted more effort or a signal that the auditor may be losing her independence? Prior literature offers conflicting evidence. In this paper, we re-examine the issue on a sample of clients who have both the incentive and the ability to use...

The existing literature on audit opinion shopping provides inconsistent evidence on whether such shopping has any association with abnormal audit fees. In this paper, we hypothesize that firms engage in audit opinion shopping and pay an abnormal audit fee only when their degree of accounting...

The purpose of this study is to examine whether mandated introduction of Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in United States of America improves the audit quality for listed companies. The empirical analysis includes the companies listed in NASDAQ stock exchange that constitutes 6,600...

Previous theories have argued that incorporation tends to reduce both audit quality and audit fees (Dye, 1994, 1995). In contrast, this paper shows that the theoretical effects of incorporation depend on three factors. If most clients are financially healthy (and pose little risk of litigation),...

We examine the costs and benefits of proactive financial reporting enforcement by the UK Financial Reporting Review Panel. Enforcement scrutiny is selective and varies by sector and over time, yet can be anticipated by auditors and companies. We find evidence that increased enforcement intensity...