In its October 2010 Green Paper on audit policy, the European Commission suggested that joint audits might be a way of improving the audit market in Europe. However, some parties consider that a joint audit system is not an efficient solution because the perceived improvements in audit quality,...

We examine how the presence of women involved in the financial reporting process of public companies, and especially the interactions between them (i.e. the simultaneous presence of a woman CFO, women sitting on the audit committee, and women auditors), impacts financial reporting quality. For...

In France, mutual banks played a key role during the recent period of consolidation of the banking industry because they acquired many privately listed banks. Our analysis of the acquisition of the private bank Crédit Lyonnais by the mutual bank Crédit Agricole illustrates three findings....

The Green Paper entitled “Audit policy: Lessons from the crisis” (European Commission, 2010) recommends the introduction of joint audit for European listed companies, based on the French experience, to limit the market dominance of the Big 4 and to promote audit quality. However, the...