The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and their incorporation of upward pricing pressure (“UPP”), as discussed in Carl Shapiro’s article, The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines: From Hedgehog to Fox in Forty Years, leave unanswered questions regarding whether the Guidelines are consistent...

This paper investigates whether client engagement risks lengthen the client acceptance phase for audit firms and result in a longer auditor search period for their clients. Using a sample of auditor resignations over the period 2003-2008, we document that the auditor search period is longer for...

We examine the relation between auditor tenure and a firm's ability to use discretionary accruals to meet or beat analysts' earnings forecasts. Regulators have long expressed concern over the use of earnings management to attain earnings targets. These concerns are compounded by lingering...

We respond to calls for research into the effect of the decline in the number of Big N firms on market power and consequential impact on competition (U.S. Department of Treasury 2008; European Commission 2010; U.K. House of Lords 2011) by analyzing the change in Big N audit fee premium over the Big 6,...