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Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 73 No. 1 2022

Client concerns about information spillovers from sharing audit partners

Jung Koo Kang1; Clive S. Lennox2; Vivek Pandey2

1 Harvard Business School, USA · 2 University of Southern California

Abstract

We hypothesize that companies in the same product market avoid sharing the same audit partner when they are concerned about possible information spillovers. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that product market rivals are less likely to share the same partner when they perceive that information spillovers are more costly. While concerns about information spillovers significantly reduce the likelihood of product market rivals sharing the same audit partner, we find that such concerns do not deter them from sharing the same audit office. Lastly, when companies are unconcerned with information spillovers, our results suggest that partner sharing can be beneficial because it can result in lower audit fees and fewer accounting misstatements.

DOI
10.1016/j.jacceco.2021.101434
Volume
73
Issue
1
Pages
101434
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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