We examine the role of discretionary investments that affect the production of audits of multiple clients. Given such investments and their associated joint fixed costs, the investment decision and production of audit services must be analyzed over a client portfolio, rather than on an...

We provide new evidence on audit pricing differences within the Big 4 audit firms in the U.S. market. Industry expertise research argues that an audit firm with greater competencies can differentiate itself from competitors in terms of within‐industry market share and charge an audit fee...

Using a large sample of privately held Korean companies that are not required to obtain an external audit, this paper examines the informational value of voluntary external audits of financial statements with respect to the cost of debt. We find that private companies with an external audit pay...