In der Literatur zur Abschlußprüfung ist ein negativer Effekt eines ökonomischen Vorteils aus der wiederholten Mandatsannahme, der aufgrund von Transaktionskosten entsteht, auf die Unabhängigkeit des Abschlußprüfers diskutiert worden. Anders als die bisher vorgestellten Ansätze wird im...

In the ongoing discussions on audit regulation, the key issues of auditor independence and a high level of audit market concentration have become apparent. However, there is the concern that regulations intended to improve auditor independence (i.e., restrictions regarding the joint supply of...

Recently, the Commission of the European Communities has put up for discussion various reform proposals intended to enhance the reliability of audits and to re-establish trust in the financial market. In particular, the EU Commission seeks to strengthen auditor independence and to decrease the...

In its recently published Green Paper, the European Commission 2010 discusses various methods to enhance the reliability of audits and to re-establish trust in the financial market. The Commission primarily focuses on increasing auditor independence and on reducing the high level of audit market...

Although the role of auditing is to increase the reliability of financial statements, surprisingly little is known about addressees’ perceptions of the auditor-client relationship. Using a sample of more than 1,000 U.S. bank-years from 2008 to 2011, we analyze the economic consequences of the...

We use Benford's Law to provide evidence that German firms round up both their net income and earnings per share. We use the introduction of the euro to show that round earnings numbers are likely the result of earnings management. The incentive to round up comes from stakeholders’ left-digit...

The main objectives of recent audit market regulations are to (1) increase audit quality, (2) decrease audit market concentration, and (3) foster competition between audit firms. However, the empirical evidence on whether such regulations fulfill these goals is limited. We construct a unique...

This paper addresses the effects of a prohibition on providing non-audit services (NAS) to audit clients. By combining a strategic auditor-client game with a circular market-matching model that has an endogenous number of auditors, we take into account the interdependence between the auditors'...