Abstract ABSTRACT: Critics allege that audit committees often fail to mitigate management pressure on auditors when disputes arise during an audit. The objective of this study is to investigate factors that may affect the likelihood that audit committees will support auditors, rather than management, in audit disputes. A repeated measures experiment was conducted using 179 audit committee members as subjects. Analysis of variance results show that backgrounds of audit committee members may be predictive of their willingness to support auditors involved in disputes with client management. Also, two contextual variables seem important--whether the relevant professional standards are objective and the relative financial condition of the audited firm.

[Critics allege that audit committees often fail to mitigate management pressure on auditors when disputes arise during an audit. The objective of this study is to investigate factors that may affect the likelihood that audit committees will support auditors, rather than management, in audit disputes. A repeated measures experiment was conducted using 179 audit committee members as subjects. Analysis of variance results show that backgrounds of audit committee members may be predictive of their willingness to support auditors involved in disputes with client management. Also, two contextual variables seem important-whether the relevant professional standards are objective and the relative financial condition of the audited firm.]

We investigate the valuation consequences of voluntary proposals to sell part or all of a corporation's assets. For partial sell-offs, successful sellers and buyers reap statistically significant abnormal returns of 1.66% and 0.83%, respectively. Unsuccessful sellers realize gains at the bid announcement of 1.41% that are lost at the offer termination. In contrast, proposals to liquidate the firm are associated with significant average abnormal returns of 12.24%. We interpret these findings as evidence that asset sales are associated with the movement of resources to higher-valued uses rather than as evidence of market mispricing before the divestiture announcements.

This paper presents the specification and estimation of a search model applied to the transition from education to work. The theoretical search model includes the possibility of variable search intensity. The empirical model with a reservation wage relation is estimated using maximum likelihood methods. A data set containing information on new law graduates is used for the estimation. Finally, the model is estimated for two separate subperiods to investigate the effects of market changes.

Governments sometimes impose price controls and nonprice rationing-by-queuing. Profit-seeking firms occasionally ration by putting their customers on “allocation.” Following Barzel [1974] and Deacon and Sonstelie [1985], we take the decision to ration as a given and analyze it, employing standard microeconomics and applied welfare economics. This paper adds to the literature by focusing on optimally rationing a good across markets. Further, we estimate the actual welfare cost of improper allocation across markets in the U. S. gasoline crises of 1973–1974 and 1979.