Following the Civil Rights Movement and the “quiet revolution” in women’s work over the years 1950 to 1970, women and minorities increasingly joined the auditing profession while the profession ramped up efforts to encourage integration. The purpose of this study is to rigorously examine...

For decades, accounting practitioners, academics, and professional bodies have argued that the quality of accounting education is falling. There are two specific claims in the literature. First, that the knowledge acquired by students in accounting programs has become less valuable and second,...

Accounting norms preceded generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), but little is known about how and why these norms emerged. We hypothesize that private-sector institutions aimed at building a knowledge base among practicing accountants fostered accounting norms before formal...

One function of the tax code is to implement social policy, incentivizing members of the public to make decisions policymakers believe to be desirable. But the tax code is complex and acquiring and processing complex information is costly. In this study, we hypothesize that tax preparers serve...

Prior research suggests that: (1) politically active firms have an information advantage over firms that do not engage in the political process, but also that (2) politically active firms are more likely to disclose policy-related information. We examine whether there are externalities...