This study evaluates the auditing profession's diversity outcomes by comparing diversity along the university to job pipeline for auditing and other comparison disciplines. My tests show consistently anomalous outcomes for Black people in the audit labor pipeline, and therefore, I focus the study on them. I find that, among college freshmen planning to major in accounting, Black college freshmen are significantly overrepresented relative to freshmen planning to major in other business disciplines or nonbusiness disciplines. I find evidence of Black underrepresentation in the audit labor pipeline at every subsequent point: among accounting bachelor's and master's degree recipients, in the audit firm recruiting process, and among young professional auditors. My evidence of especially sharp Black attrition from accounting degree programs is, to my knowledge, novel. Although I lack sufficient data to pinpoint the mechanisms causing this sharp Black attrition from accounting degree programs, my findings are inconsistent with the popular theory that Black college students are distinctively uninterested in pursuing accounting education. It is not yet possible to make well‐targeted and data‐driven policy prescriptions to counter Black attrition from accounting degree programs because its causes are not well understood. Universities could contribute to the diagnosis process by systematically collecting and distributing data characterizing when and why students select away from accounting. My findings on audit firm recruiting are inconsistent with popular theories that Black underrepresentation in audit firms is attributable to overtly racially biased recruiters or lower interest among Black accounting graduates in pursuing careers in audit firms. Rather, my findings conform best with unintentionally biased recruiting by audit firms, which appear to make recruiting investments using outdated definitions of school quality. My evidence suggests that campus‐recruiting leaders within audit firms have the opportunity to hire more Black auditors without reducing the quality of the schools from which they recruit.

We use theory from identity economics, which synthesizes research characterizing how personal identity shapes decisions in domains such as education and career selection, to predict that the process by which people sort into accounting careers produces a population of accountants with a distinctive set of values. Specifically, we hypothesize that two kinds of personal values, called conservation values and self‐enhancement values, are overrepresented among accountants because they are associated with the decision to work as an accountant. Using data from 38 countries in the European Social Survey, we find support for both hypotheses. Given this evidence that accountants' values prioritize stability over change and concern for self over concern for others, we further hypothesize that, motivated by these values, accountants will be relatively skeptical about contemporary targets of social reforms, including those pursued by prominent accounting organizations. We test this prediction using attitudes about climate change and tolerance for minorities and find support for it. Based on our findings, we derive recommendations for an effective design of social reforms in the accounting profession. Our findings are relevant for accounting elites tasked with leading the profession into a dynamic future and contribute to the new and growing literature on accounting's human capital.

The digital evolution in auditing has triggered a rapid shift in auditors' required skill sets, with audit firms heavily investing in and extolling advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. However, this strong emphasis on newly required digital skills can lead many experienced auditors, who perceive these competencies as their weaker areas, to feel disaffirmed in their abilities. We predict and find, across two experiments, that auditors who feel disaffirmed in their digital skills more defensively discount specialist advice that places higher versus lower reliance on AI, but that an intervention in which auditors affirm their traditional audit skills mitigates this defensive reaction. Absent self‐affirmation, higher specialist reliance on AI results in auditors denigrating the competence and quality of advice that specialists provide. These findings suggest that disaffirmation escalates AI aversion, offering important insights into how audit firms can foster less defensive decision‐making in the rapidly evolving audit environment.

We examine the impact of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Code Section 4960 of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 on nonprofit organizations (NPOs). This section imposes a 21% excise tax on nonprofit employee compensation exceeding $1 million per covered individual. As this is an exogenous shock imposing a cost on NPOs with highly paid employees, it leads us to examine whether those employees share the newly added cost via a reduction in their compensation. Using a difference‐in‐differences analysis on data from IRS Form 990 filings for nearly 40,000 nonprofit employee‐year observations from 2015 to 2010, we find that the level of compensation, on average, increases for treated executives in the post–Section 4960 period, but at a slower rate than that of the control group of executives. These results are consistent with highly paid employees being reluctant, on average, to take a pay cut, but being more willing to accept a reduction in their rate of pay growth. Our results are robust to alternative treatment specifications and control samples, such as employees who earn more than $1 million but are not covered under Section 4960 and medical professionals who are specifically exempt from Section 4960. We also find that compensation decreases are more likely for treated employees post–Section 4960 and that replacements for treated CEOs take an even steeper pay cut post–Section 4960. Additionally, we observe increased turnover for treated CEOs post–Section 4960, consistent with Section 4960 leading to conflicts between treated CEOs and their boards regarding the excise tax and who should bear its cost.