We examine whether and how individual auditors affect audit outcomes using a large set of archival Chinese data. We analyze approximately 800 individual auditors and find that they exhibit ...significant variation in audit quality. The effects that individual auditors have on audit quality are both economically and statistically significant, and are pronounced in both large and small audit firms. We also find that the individual auditor effects on audit quality can be partially explained by auditor characteristics, such as educational background, Big N audit firm experience, rank in the audit firm, and political affiliation. Our findings highlight the importance of scrutinizing and understanding audit quality at the individual auditor level.
► Investigate association between Malaysian politically connected firms and the cost of debt. ► We provide evidence PCON firms are perceived to be riskier by lenders. ► Find PCON firms have higher ...leverage and more likely to report a loss. ► We provide evidence that PCON firms with CEO duality are perceived by lenders to be more risky. ► We provide evidence that PCON firms with more independent audit committees mitigate this risk.
This paper investigates the association between Malaysian politically connected (PCON) firms and the cost of debt. We extend previous research that finds Malaysian PCON firms are perceived as being of higher risk by the market, and by audit firms, by providing evidence that lenders also perceive these firms as being of higher risk. We also find that PCON firms have a significantly (1) higher extent of leverage, (2) higher likelihood of reporting a loss, (3) higher likelihood of having negative equity, and (4) higher likelihood of being audited by a big audit firm. We suggest that PCON firms are charged higher interest rates by lenders as a result of efficient contracting given their higher inherent risks. Additionally, we find that CEO duality present in PCON firms is perceived by lenders as being more risky, and that a higher proportion of independent directors on the audit committee mitigate this perceived risk.
This paper investigates the effects of largest-shareholder ownership concentration, foreign ownership, and audit quality on the amount of firm-specific information incorporated into share prices, as ...measured by stock price synchronicity, of Chinese-listed firms over the 1996–2003 period. We show that synchronicity is a concave function of ownership by the largest shareholder with its maximum at an approximate 50% level. Further, we find that synchronicity is higher when the largest shareholder is government related. We also find that foreign ownership and auditor quality are inversely associated with synchronicity. Finally, we show that the amount of earnings information reflected in stock returns is lower for firms with high synchronicity.
We show that stock prices of firms with gender-diverse boards reflect more firm-specific information after controlling for corporate governance, earnings quality, institutional ownership and ...acquisition activity. Further, we show that the relationship is stronger for firms with weak corporate governance suggesting that gender-diverse boards could act as a substitute mechanism for corporate governance that would be otherwise weak. The results are robust to alternative specifications of informativeness and gender diversity and to sensitivity tests controlling for time-invariant firm characteristics and alternative measures of stock price informativeness. We also find that gender diversity improves stock price informativeness through the mechanism of increased public disclosure in large firms and by encouraging private information collection in small firms.
► Gender-diverse boards increase transparency. ► Board gender diversity is a substitute for other forms of corporate governance. ► Board gender diversity increases public disclosure in large firms. ► Board gender diversity encourages private information in small firms.
We draw on agency and stakeholder theories to examine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement–empire building relationship. Our results, using a US sample for the period 1996–2015, show ...that CSR is associated with lower empire building, consistent with stakeholder theory. These results are robust to tests of endogeneity, alternative proxies for CSR and empire building, and the use of alternative methods. Further, the negative CSR engagement–empire building relationship is found to be weaker for firms with overconfident CEOs, consistent with behavioural traits theory. More interestingly, we find that overconfident CEOs with high CSR engagement tend to acquire more, especially in firms with low CEO ownership, consistent with agency theory. Finally, the valuation impact of CSR in acquisitions is contingent on CEO overconfidence: CSR increases the value of acquisitions when the CEO is less overconfident but destroys the value when the CEO is overconfident.
This paper extends the literature on the role of political economy in financial reporting and auditing by testing two hypotheses. The first hypothesis predicts that there will be a greater increase ...in audit effort and audit fees for Malaysian firms with political connections, as a result of the Asian financial crisis, than for non-politically connected firms because these firms have a higher risk of financial misstatements. The second hypothesis predicts that the audit fees of politically connected firms will decline when capital controls are introduced by the government as a ploy to financially assist politically connected firms to rebound from the crisis, and thus reduces the risk of financial misstatements. The results show that there is a greater increase in audit fees for firms with political connections than for non-politically connected firms as a result of the Asian financial crisis. However, there is a decline in audit fees for politically connected firms after the capital controls are implemented.
We examine the association between financial statement comparability and the likelihood of accounting fraud. Prior research documents a negative association between the quality of a firm's reporting ...environment and accounting fraud. We build on this literature and show that poor financial statement comparability is associated with a greater likelihood of accounting fraud. We also find that accounting comparability declines over time as the year of fraud detection approaches and that the association between comparability and fraud becomes more negative over this time. In addition, we find that financial statement comparability improves after fraud detection, consistent with the notion that managers improve their financial reporting quality after fraud.
Short-term debt and credit ratings have benefits for financial reporting quality that may be associated with lower audit fees. Using U.S. data for 2003 through 2006, we find that short-term debt is ...negatively related to audit fees for firms rated by Standard & Poor's, consistent with more monitoring and better governance mechanisms in firms with higher short-term debt. Credit ratings quality is negatively related to audit fees, consistent with ratings quality reflecting a firm's liquidity risk, governance mechanisms, and monitoring from rating agencies. We also find that the negative relation between short-term debt and audit fees is stronger for firms with low-quality credit ratings, consistent with auditors pricing lender monitoring.
Prior studies suggest that auditors with short tenure are associated with lower earnings quality because of the lack of client-specific knowledge and/or low balling. In this study, we examine whether ...industry specialization of auditors and low balling affect the association between auditor tenure and earnings quality. We find that the association between shorter auditor tenure and lower earnings quality is weaker for firms audited by industry specialists compared to non-specialists. In addition, we do not find results consistent with the low balling explanation.
