This study investigates the effect of changing tax accounting provisions for long-term manufacturing contracts between 1984–1985 and 1989–1990 on debt and accrual policies using a simultaneous equations approach. The results indicate that firms adjust debt ratios and discretionary accruals with relatively high book-tax conformity to achieve tax planning goals and use discretionary accruals with relatively low book-tax conformity to accomplish financial reporting objectives. Manufacturing firms directly affected by the change in tax rules for long-term contracts increase their leverage by 6.2 percentage points more than other manufacturers.

[This study tests the competitive equilibrium predictions of a multi-period model of audit pricing and independence in two sets of laboratory markets: a control set consisting of human subjects in the role of auditors contracting with robot clients, and a treatment set in which both auditors and clients are human subjects. The results in all the control-set markets and some of the treatment markets support the predictions of "lowball" pricing and that heterogeneous beliefs among auditors regarding the treatment of a client-reporting issue is a necessary condition for independence impairment. By contrast, several treatment-set markets exhibit cooperative behavior between auditors and clients to achieve jointly beneficial outcomes. This behavior deviates from the price-independence relationship predicted in the competitive equilibrium, exhibiting instead a price-independence relationship that is characterized by an absence of lowballing and frequent independence impairment, even when auditors have homogeneous beliefs.]

This study tests the competitive equilibrium predictions of a multi-period model of audit pricing and independence in two sets of laboratory markets: a control set consisting of human subjects in the role of auditors contracting with robot clients, and a treatment set in which both auditors and clients are human subjects. The results in all the control-set markets and some of the treatment markets support the predictions of "lowball" pricing and that heterogeneous beliefs among auditors regarding the treatment of a client-reporting issue is a necessary condition for independence impairment. By contrast, several treatment-set markets exhibit cooperative behavior between auditors and clients to achieve jointly beneficial outcomes. This behavior deviates from the price-independence relationship predicted in the competitive equilibrium, exhibiting instead a price-independence relationship that is characterized by an absence of lowballing and frequent independence impairment, even when auditors have homogeneous beliefs.