We examine the relation between auditor reputation and earnings management in banks using a sample of banks from 29 countries. In particular, we examine the implications of two aspects of auditor reputation, auditor type and auditor industry specialization, for earnings management in banks. We find that both auditor type and auditor industry specialization moderate benchmark-beating (loss-avoidance and just-meeting-or-beating prior year’s earnings) behavior in banks. In addition, we find that once auditor type and auditor industry specialization are included in the same tests, only auditor industry specialization has a significant impact on constraining benchmark-beating behavior. In separate tests related to income-increasing abnormal loan loss provisions, we find that both auditor type and auditor expertise constrain income-increasing earnings management. Again, in joint tests, only auditor industry expertise has a significant impact on constraining income-increasing earnings management.

ABSTRACT We find that auditors of more conservative clients charge lower fees, issue fewer going concern opinions, and resign less frequently, consistent with more conservative clients imposing less engagement risk on their auditors. Using path analysis, we find evidence that both inherent risk and auditor business risk explain these associations. Also consistent with conservatism reducing auditor business risk, we find that client conservatism is associated with fewer lawsuits against auditors and with fewer client restatements. Taken together, our results are consistent with auditors viewing client conservatism as an important determinant of engagement risk that, in turn, affects auditor-client contracting decisions. Our findings should be of interest to auditors who actively manage client risk and to standard-setters who recently dropped conservatism as a desired attribute of financial reporting quality. Data Availability: All data are publicly available from sources indicated in the text.

Using an international sample of IPO firms and two country-level measures of financial literacy, we find strong evidence that financial literacy is negatively associated with IPO underpricing. In cross-sectional analyses, we find that the effect of financial literacy in reducing IPO underpricing is more pronounced when the information environment is less transparent. Employing path analysis, we document that information friction, firm transparency, and stock market participation are mechanisms that mediate this relationship. Our study contributes to and extends the literature by providing strong evidence that citizens’ financial literacy has an important and consistent influence on IPO underpricing.

ABSTRACT Based on Lambert, Leuz, and Verrecchia's (2007) derivation of the cost of equity capital in terms of expected cash flows, we generate a testable hypothesis that relates tax avoidance to a firm's cost of equity capital. Using three broad measures of tax avoidance—book-tax differences, permanent book-tax differences, and long-run cash effective tax rates—to test our hypothesis, we find that the cost of equity is lower for tax-avoiding firms. This effect is stronger for firms with better outside monitoring, firms that likely realize higher marginal benefits from tax savings, and firms with higher information quality. Overall, our results suggest that equity investors generally require a lower expected rate of return due to the positive cash flow effects of corporate tax avoidance. JEL Classifications: G32; H26; M41.