[This study tests whether there is a positive association between a firm's agency costs and its demand for a quality-differentiated audit. Audit firm quality is represented in two ways: a continuous size model in which a direct association is posited between auditor size (measured by clients' sales) and audit quality, and a "brand name" model in which the Big Eight group of auditors is defined as higher quality suppliers. The tests are supportive of the brand name model of audit quality: agency cost proxies are significant as a group, after controlling for client size and growth, only in the brand name model. The results are also supportive (albeit weakly in some instances) of the following individual agency-related incentives for higher quality audits: monitoring of incentive performance contracts, diffusion of ownership, owner-debtholder conflict, and the subsequent issue of public securities after the auditor change. However, the explanatory power of the models tested is low, after controlling for client size and growth.]

[The Commission on Auditors' Responsibilities expressed concern for the adverse effect of audit fee price cutting on auditor independence. In the present study, tests were conducted to determine both the presence and magnitude of audit fee price cutting on 1984 audit fees for a sample of 214 firms having changed auditors over the period 1979-1984. A control sample of 226 firms not changing auditors over the same period was used in order to estimate price cutting. Results indicated a significant fee reduction in the initial engagement year that averaged 24 percent of normal fee levels for ongoing engagements, an average fee reduction of 15 percent for each of the next two years, but by the fourth year of the new auditor the fee had increased to normal levels for continuing engagements. The Commission's concern for price cutting's effect on auditor independence is then reconsidered in the context of recent work on the psychology of sunk costs.]

[Simunic [1980] and Palmrose [1986, Appendix A] report contradictory findings about a Big Eight auditor price premium in the "small" auditee segment of the U.S. audit market for publicly-traded companies. The study reported here finds that a Big Eight price premium exists and that the premium exists with respect to both second-tier national firms and local/regional firms. The existence of a price premium implies Big Eight product differentiation, at least in the "small" auditee market segment. A separate test is made of initial audit engagements. Tests indicate that initial engagements are priced significantly lower than continuing engagements, which supports recent reports of price-cutting behavior. However, no inference is made about the effect of price-cutting on audit quality.]

Two competing theories of initial engagement audit pricing are examined empirically. DeAngelo's (1981a) model predicts initial engagement discounts in all settings, while Dye's (1991) model specifically predicts discounting will not occur in settings where audit fees are publicly disclosed. Unlike the United States and most countries, audit fees are publicly disclosed in Australia. Our study examines initial engagement pricing in Australia during a time period when comparable U.S. studies report discounts of 25 percent (Ettredge and Greenberg 1990; Simon and Francis 1988). The Australian evidence finds initial engagement discounting only for upgrades from non-Big 8 to Big 8 auditors. Discounting for upgrades to Big 8 auditors is consistent with economic theories of discount pricing by sellers of higher-priced, higher-quality experience goods as an inducement to purchase when uncertainty about product quality is resolved through buying (experiencing) the goods. The evidence in our study is generally consistent with Dye's (1991) conclusion that public disclosure of audit fees precludes initial engagement discounting and the potential independence problems arising from such discounting.

This study tests whether them is a positive association between a firm's agency costs and its demand for a quality-differentiated audit. Audit firm quality is represented in two ways: a continuous size model in which a direct association is posited between auditor size (measured by clients' sales) and audit quality, and a "brand name" model in which the Big Eight group of auditors is defined as higher quality suppliers. The tests are supportive of the brand name model of audit quality: agency cost proxies are significant as a group, after controlling for client size and growth, only in the brand name model. The results are also supportive (albeit weakly In some Instances) of the following individual agency-related Incentives for higher quality audits: monitoring of Incentive performance contracts, diffusion of ownership, owner-debtholder conflict, and the subsequent Issue of public securities after the auditor change. However, the explanatory power of the models tested is low, after controlling for client size and growth.

We investigate if the existence of low-quality audits in an auditor office indicates the presence of a “contagion effect” on the quality of other (concurrent) audits conducted by the office. A low-quality audit is defined as the presence of one or more clients with overstated earnings that were subsequently corrected by a downward restatement. We document that the quality of audited earnings (abnormal accruals) is lower for clients in these office-years (when the misreporting occurred) compared to a control sample of office-years with no restatements. This effect lasts for up to five subsequent years, indicating that audit firms do not immediately rectify the problems that caused contagion. We also find that an office-year with client misreporting is likely to have subsequent (new) client restatements over the next five fiscal years. Overall, the evidence suggests that certain auditor offices have systematic audit-quality problems and that these problems persist over time. Data Availability: All data are publicly available.

Larger offices of Big 4 auditors are predicted to have higher quality audits for SEC registrants due to greater in-house experience in administering such audits. We test this prediction by examining a sample of 6,568 U.S. firm-year observations for the period 2003–2005 and audited by 285 unique Big 4 offices. Results are consistent with larger offices providing higher quality audits. Specifically, larger offices are more likely to issue going-concern audit reports, and clients in larger offices evidence less aggressive earnings management behavior. These findings are robust to extensive controls for client risk factors and to controls for other auditor characteristics. While the evidence suggests audit quality is higher on average in larger Big 4 offices, we make no claims that audit quality is unacceptably low in smaller offices.

The Commission on Auditors' Responsibilities expressed concern for the adverse effect of audit fee price cutting on auditor independence. In the present study, tests were conducted to determine both the presence and magnitude of audit fee price cutting on 1984 audit fees for a sample of 214 firms having changed auditors over the period 1979–1984. A control sample of 226 firms not changing auditors over the same period was used in order to estimate price cutting. Results indicated a significant fee reduction in the initial engagement year that averaged 24 percent of normal fee levels for ongoing engagements, an average fee reduction of 15 percent for each of the next two years, but by the fourth year of the new auditor the fee had increased to normal levels for continuing engagements. The Commission's concern for price cutting's effect on auditor Independence is then reconsidered in the context of recent work on the psychology of sunk costs.

Simunic [1980] and Palmrose [1986, Appendix A] report contradictory findings about a Big Eight auditor price premium In the "small" auditee segment of the U.S. audit market for publicly-traded companies. The study reported here finds that a Big Eight price premium exists and that the premium exists with respect to both second-tier national firms and local/regional firms. The existence of a price premium Implies Big Eight product differentiation, at least in the "small" auditee market segment. A separate test is made of initial audit engagements. Tests indicate that initial engagements are priced significantly lower than continuing engagements, which supports recent reports of price-cutting behavior. However, no inference is made about the effect of price-cutting on audit quality.

Prior research predicts that firms reliant on external financing are more likely to undertake a higher level of disclosure, and a higher disclosure level should, in turn, lead to a lower cost of external financing. This paper tests these predictions outside the United States where alternative legal and financial systems could mitigate the effectiveness of such disclosures and, comprehensively, examines both disclosure incentives and disclosure consequences on cost of capital for a common set of firms. Using a sample from 34 countries, we find that firms in industries with greater external financing needs have higher voluntary disclosure levels, and that an expanded disclosure policy for these firms leads to a lower cost of both debt and equity capital. Crosscountry differences in legal and financial systems affect observed disclosure levels in predicted ways. However, a surprising result in the study is that voluntary disclosure incentives appear to operate independently of country-level factors, which suggests the effectiveness of voluntary disclosure in gaining access to lower cost external financing around the world.