This paper studies the relation between aggregate stock returns and contemporaneous and future cross-sectional earnings dispersion. We hypothesize that increases in expected earnings dispersion signal increases in uncertainty and increases in unemployment, thereby causing expected returns to...

type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>To what degree are audit fees for U.S. firms with publicly traded equity higher than fees for otherwise similar firms with private equity? The answer is potentially important for evaluating regulatory regime design efficiency and for understanding audit demand and production...</p>