Executives are 'affiliated' if they previously worked for their companies' audit firms. I find most affiliations (71.3%) occur when auditors become employees of audit clients ('employment affiliations'), but affiliations also arise when companies hire executives' former CPA firms ('alma mater...

We test the effect of audit effort on earnings management using a unique database of hours worked by auditors on 9,738 audits in Greece between 1994 and 2002. When audit hours are lower, (1) abnormal accruals are more often positive than negative, (2) positive abnormal accruals are larger, and...

Although theory suggests that companies would rationally select into audit even if it were not a legal requirement, many countries impose mandatory audits. This is arguably due to an audit having elements of a public good, which may result in not enough audits being purchased without regulatory...

This study examines the market valuation of accounting earnings during the period before it is publicly revealed that the earnings are fraudulent. Using both cross-sectional and time-series valuation models, we first find that the market accords less weight to earnings when the accounting...