Journal of Accounting Research最新文献

We investigate whether shared auditors promote the dissemination of innovative knowledge among their clients, thereby fostering follow-on innovation. We find that a company cites more patents from another company when they are audited by the same audit office. To address concerns about potential confounding factors stemming from commonalities in the fundamentals of the two companies, we leverage a quasi-exogenous shock to auditor sharing: the demise of Arthur Andersen and the subsequent increase in auditor switching in 2002. Further analysis reveals that the effect of a shared auditor on cross-client patent citations is stronger when both clients engage in intensive innovation activities. Additional evidence suggests that shared auditors exert more influence on the citations of recent patents and patents that are easier for outsiders to utilize. Overall, our findings suggest that auditors affect corporate innovation by facilitating the transfer of innovative knowledge among their clients.

We investigate the establishment of public audit oversight bodies (POBs) worldwide. We present descriptive evidence on POBs’ characteristics and factors influencing the timing of their establishment, finding that countries with stronger institutions, civil law traditions, and higher media attention to audit quality adopt POBs faster. While countries may choose similar POB design features, these choices do not align with the factors driving adoption speed. We also explore whether the finding of a positive impact on audit quality of the U.S. PCAOB generalizes to other countries. A difference-in-differences analysis over 20 years provides some evidence that POB establishment and their characteristics improve audit quality. However, the results appear sensitive to audit quality measures and research design. Our study offers the first broad-based investigation of POB adoption and provides important nuance on the relation between POBs and audit quality.

This paper investigates why commercial lenders make markets for the loans that they sell on the secondary market. Using loan-level data, I find that origination lenders with extensive borrower relationships and more reputational capital at stake are more likely to serve as market makers. Greater participation of origination lenders as market makers is associated with lower trading costs for their borrowers' loans. This association remains even in conditions where origination lenders could exploit their information advantage for market making profits. Lenders benefit from being market makers by maintaining strong subsequent lending relationships with their borrowers. Collectively, this evidence is consistent with origination lenders' participation in the secondary market being motivated by reducing trading frictions rather than market making profits.

We examine whether U.S. immigration policy, specifically the H-1B visa program, affects the likelihood of financial misconduct. We argue that employers have leverage over employees on H-1B visas because such employees must maintain H-1B–eligible employment to legally reside in the United States. We posit that companies relying on H-1B visas to hire workers in accounting roles have an increased ability to misreport their financial statements due to the greater costs H-1B employees face if they are unexpectedly fired for not following the demands of their bosses or for blowing the whistle on misconduct. Using the sharp reduction in the H-1B visa cap in 2004 as a shock to such employment, we find that companies that relied on this visa program for accounting roles pre-shock experience a 2.3 percentage point decline in accounting irregularities post-shock. Cross-sectional tests show that the reduction in irregularities is greater in companies where H-1B employees have (1) a greater influence on financial reporting or (2) fewer job opportunities. In addition, the relation between H-1B visa use and irregularities is stronger in companies whose investors are more focused on near-term earnings targets. We corroborate our findings using the outcome of H-1B visa lotteries as shocks to such employment.