We find that the audit report lag is significantly higher for former Andersen clients (that did not follow their Andersen partner to the new audit firm) than for clients voluntarily changing auditors from another Big 5 predecessor for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002 (the first year with...

Many studies report that audit fees are discounted in the year of an auditor change and regulators have long been concerned that such fee discounting could impair audit quality. We find significant bias in the way studies have tested for fee discounting. The bias exists because interim...

In a highly influential analysis, Lawrence, Minutti-Meza, and Zhang (2011), LMZ henceforth, report that statistically significant relations between a firm's choice of a Big N auditor and three audit quality metrics (discretionary accruals, cost equity capital, and analyst forecast accuracy) turn...