According to auditing standards, explanatory language added at the auditor's discretion to unqualified audit reports should not indicate increased financial misstatement risk. However, an auditor is unlikely to add language that would strain the auditor-client relationship absent concerns about...

Audit firms face conflicting incentives. On one hand, they are motivated to provide high quality audits in order to protect their reputations and avoid regulatory sanctions but, on the other hand, they also need to please their clients in order to increase their revenues. We argue that these...

Audit firms need to provide high quality audits but they also need to please their clients. We argue that these conflicting incentives become manifest when comparing the incentive effects of equity ownership on engagement quality (EQ) reviewers and audit engagement partners. We predict that EQ...