We find that mutual funds whose managers are socially connected with firm auditors hold more shares of these firms and generate superior portfolio returns. Cross-sectional results reveal that the relation between social connections and mutual fund stockholdings is more pronounced: when the...

We analyze a unique auditor independence threat stemming from audit partners’ incentives to secure new revenue streams using the context of audit clients belonging to business groups. Since a partner who issues a modified audit opinion (MAO) to a group-affiliated client risks losing not only...

We examine the impact of managerial mood on corporate tax avoidance—a ubiquitous corporate decision. Using variation in local sunshine as exogenous shocks to managerial mood, we report strong, robust evidence that negative mood induced by cloudy weather leads firms to undertake more aggressive...

There is tension underlying whether asset redeployability, which refers to the salability of corporate capital assets, shapes crash risk. On one hand, asset redeployability enables managers to opportunistically exploit asset sales to manage earnings upwards to hoard bad news, which, in turn,...

In this qualitative research, we explore the deployment of electronic commerce by Canadian firms in the global marketplace, with an emphasis on the implications of e-commerce for tax planning. The business press and various governmental task forces discuss concerns created by e-commerce for...

Auditors are required by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other rules to evaluate the probability that a firm's management bribes foreign government officials. If the auditors comply with these rules by assessing higher audit risk for firms with operations in corrupt foreign countries, we...

We examine the importance of analysts covering firms with common audit partners to analyst earnings forecast performance (hereafter, we term the analyst, auditor, and the firm as being “common”). We find that analysts issue more accurate and less optimistically biased earnings forecasts for...

We examine the impact of social ties between mutual fund managers and auditors of public firms on mutual fund stockholdings. We find that mutual funds whose managers are socially connected with firm auditors hold more shares of these firms. In cross-sectional results consistent with...

We examine the impact of clients' tax enforcement on financial statement auditors. In a regression discontinuity design, we exploit the firm-registration-date-based application of a new rule that assigns firms to two different tax enforcement regimes. Our analysis implies that auditors exert...