Auditing standards and anecdotal evidence suggest that accounting personnel's lack of financial reporting competencies can increase audit risk. This study draws on human capital theory to measure the quality of accounting personnel based on their education level and obtains evidence of how the...

Psychological and upper echelons theories suggest that CEOs with the personality trait of sensation seeking shape corporate policies. In gauging sensation seeking with whether the CEO holds a pilot license, we examine its importance to firms' accounting conservatism. Our evidence implies that...

Prior research documents wide variation in the precision of accounting standards (rules-based standards (RBS) versus principles-based standards (PBS)). We examine whether financial reporting quality evident in restatements is associated with accounting standard precision and whether the role...

Extant evidence implies that managers rely on a variety of non-income-increasing techniques to manipulate earnings. However, prior research finds that the auditor is more likely to discipline firms against practicing income-increasing (II) earnings management due to its higher litigation and...