We examine how third party verification of internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR) affects bank supervision by exploiting a change in size thresholds for required FDICIA-related internal control audits. We document that affected banks have higher reported levels of non-performing loans...

The majority of U.S. public companies release annual earnings prior to the completion of audit fieldwork. We investigate this phenomenon in a controlled experiment with audit partners and senior managers. We find that releasing earnings before completion of the audit pressures auditors to adopt...

Ineffective internal controls over financial reporting often relates to a lack of qualified personnel with sufficient accounting and technical expertise. In this study, we examine whether firms respond to internal control failures by increasing their demand for specific accounting and finance...

This study examines the relation between audit personnel salaries and office-level audit quality. We measure audit personnel salaries at the associate, senior and manager ranks for Big 4 audit offices from 2004 to 2013 using unique individual auditor level data obtained from the U.S. Department...

There has been a substantial increase, since 2004, in the number of firms that announce annual earnings before audit completion as opposed to after audit completion. In this study, we argue that earnings announced before audit completion are associated with lower financial reporting quality and...

This paper examines how the effect of the audit partner on accounting estimates varies across the tenure of a partner/client relationship. Using confidential data on audit partner identity in the banking industry, we find that banks systematically report higher loan loss reserves (LLRs) at the...