Productivity in Top‐10 Academic Accounting Journals by Researchers at Canadian Universities at the Start of the 21st Century

We assess the research publication productivity of Canadian‐based accounting researchers in highly ranked accounting journals for the 2001–13 period. Our research provides important benchmarks for use by individual researchers and universities for matters such as promotion and tenure decisions. For example, each Canadian‐based faculty member had approximately 0.50 of a weighted article for the 13‐year period, and 45 percent of all accounting faculty members published at least once in a top‐10 accounting journal. We also provide an overview of the type of research being published by Canadian‐based researchers in each of the top‐10 journals (financial accounting, managerial, audit, tax or other) and we assess how productivity at top‐10 journals has changed over time. In supplemental analysis, we compare and contrast the productivity of the 15 male and 15 female academics that publish most in top‐10 accounting journals to assess the breadth of outlets being used beyond top‐10 outlets (including FT 45 journals, accounting journals ranked “A”, “B”, and “non‐A/B”; non‐accounting peer‐reviewed journals, non‐peer‐reviewed outlets). The supplemental analysis also helps to shed light on the finding from this paper, and prior research, that women are less likely to be represented on lists of those with most publications in highly ranked accounting journals, by comparing the two groups of researchers across a variety of institutional and other factors.     

Audit Quality and the Market Valuation of Banks’ Allowance for Loan Losses*

The recent banking crisis has led market participants to focus on the adequacy and quality of banks’ balance sheet items such as the allowance for loan losses. Beaver and Engel (1996) document that the capital market prices the nondiscretionary component of loan loss allowance negatively and the discretionary component less negatively. Using data from the pre‐crisis period and three measures of audit quality, auditor type (i.e., Big 5 versus non–Big 5), auditor industry specialization/expertise, and audit and nonaudit fees paid to auditors, we examine the effect of audit quality on the market valuation of the discretionary component of the allowance for loan losses. We find that, relative to the nondiscretionary component, the market valuation of the discretionary component of loan loss allowance is higher for banks audited by Big 5 auditors than for banks audited by non–Big 5 auditors. We also find that the relative market valuation of the discretionary component of loan loss allowance is increasing in auditor expertise. Regarding the impact of fees paid to auditors, we find that banks paying higher audit fees have higher relative market valuation of the discretionary component of the allowance for loan losses, but banks that pay higher nonaudit fees do not.