Using a novel dataset of online job postings by accounting firms, this study empirically examines audit offices’ skill preferences and whether they relate to audit quality. Consistent with prior work in labor economics, we find the demand for cognitive, social, and technology- related skills...

We use a unique setting of an auditor's acquisition of another auditor to provide new insight into customer responses to mergers broadly, and to study several audit market dynamics. Unlike most merger settings that primarily allow examination of the merging firms and their rivals, this setting...

We argue that the association between auditor industry specialization and audit quality depends on how long the auditor has been a specialist. We measure audit quality using absolute discretionary accruals, income-increasing discretionary accruals, and book-tax differences. Our results, based on...

Using several audit quality measures, Minutti-Meza (2013, MM) argues that controlling for client characteristics through matching eliminates the association between auditor industry specialization and audit quality. Gaver and Utke (2019, GU) argue that this result is unstable across matching...

Prior research suggests that characteristics of audit partners are important drivers of audit quality. However, evidence on whether partner industry expertise improves audit quality is mixed. Using a large dataset of audit partners in India, we employ new partner-level measures of industry...