The distraction effect of non-audit services on audit quality

Regulators have expressed concerns that an emphasis on non-audit services (NAS) could distract from the audit function, even for clients with minimal NAS purchases. Motivated by this concern, we examine whether a greater emphasis on providing NAS to audit clients generally (i.e., not to a specific client) can distract from the audit function, thus reducing audit quality. We find evidence of an NAS distraction effect, where a greater emphasis on NAS at the audit office-level results in more client financial statement restatements, even after controlling for client-specific NAS. Further, the association exists among clients that purchase minimal NAS, suggesting that this association relates to distraction effects in addition to independence issues examined in prior research. This study should be of interest to audit firms, audit committees, and regulators because it provides new evidence regarding issues related to a business model that includes both audit and non-audit services.     

The impact of audit committee expertise on auditor resources: the case of Israel

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We investigate the association between internal audit resources and both audit committee financial expertise and independence using hand-collected...     

Intergenerational Mobility and the Process of Development

This paper offers an explanation for some evidence that intergenerational earnings mobility is higher in more developed economies and that mobility is positively correlated with wage equality. In the model mobility promotes economic growth via its effect on the accumulation and allocation of human capital. Growth influences mobility via its effect on incentives to acquire education and its effect on liquidity constraints upon such acquisition. In the process of development mobility increases and the distribution of education becomes better correlated with ability. Redistributive policy has a negative effect on growth in developed economies and a positive effect in developing economies.     

Business Strategy,Financial Reporting Irregularities,and Audit Effort

This study examines whether clients' business strategies are a factor in determining the occurrence of financial reporting irregularities and the level of audit effort. We use the organizational strategy theory of Miles and Snow to develop a comprehensive measure of business strategy using publicly available data. We find that Miles and Snow's Prospector strategy is more likely to be involved in financial reporting irregularities and generally requires greater audit effort. The business strategy measure also appears to capture client business risk and provides incremental explanatory power beyond the individual measures of client complexity or risk used in traditional audit fee models. We contribute to the literature by constructing a replicable business strategy measure and identifying organizational business strategy as an important ex ante determinant of financial reporting irregularities and levels of audit effort. Our results suggest that investigating how audits can be improved to reduce financial reporting irregularities among Prospector clients is an important area for audit practice and future research.     

Causal relationship between construction investment policy and economic growth in Turkey

The construction industry in countries experiencing severe economic crisis has vital importance to get out of stagnation because of its direct relations with 200 different sectors. In this study, the relationship between the construction growth data (infrastructure, building and residential (public), building and residential (private) investment) and gross domestic product (GDP) is examined for Turkey. To this end, Engle–Granger cointegration, error correction model (ECM) and Granger causality tests were applied in order to determine the aforementioned relation. It has been found that the infrastructure and building–residential investments have direct relations with the GDP and have causality effects.     

“Modeling the impact of wars and terrorism on tourism demand in Kurdistan region of Iraq”

Portuguese Economic Journal - Recent political instabilities in the Middle East have led to strong negative impacts on the tourism sector. The aim of this study is to investigate the extent and the...     

Political contributions and corruption in the United States

The empirical evidence presented in this study indicates that political contributions and corruption are complements, rather than substitutes. Based on panel data for seven election cycles, regression results show that in the United States, political contributions and federal corruption convictions are positively correlated. Accordingly, we propose an alternative explanation for the relationship between political contributions and corruption: two components of a comprehensive strategy for rent-seeking. As long-term investments, political contributions influence legislators to change the rules of the game; as short-term investments, corruption influences public officials to sidestep the existing rules, in order to maximize the rent collected.     

Is Talk Cheap?

For the steel import quota bill of 1999, each word in the Congressional Record costs $39 in campaign contributions from the steel industry. Consequently, our answer is "Yes, talk is cheap!"     

Group Dynamics of Corruption in Public Organizations

Abstract

When there are two groups of officials in a public organization, we show that depending on the groups’ behavior – collusive or competitive – increasing the level of monitoring and punishment may have different impacts on corruption. If the two groups of public officials had been demonstrating collusive behavior, increased monitoring or punishment reduces both the level of corrupt activities and the corrupt officials’ bribe revenues. However, if the groups had not been colluding, increased monitoring reduces the level of corruption, but increases the corruption revenues collected. Only after reaching the optimum level of monitoring, is this result reversed.     

Exploring satisfaction in business-to-business services: a path-analytic approach

In this article, we propose a path-analytic approach to model the relationships among overall satisfaction, satisfaction with higher order performance domains and the lower order performance attributes for business-to-business services. The model is estimated using data from the business customers of a large provider of electronics products and services. Our results show that overall satisfaction in such contexts may be driven by satisfaction on multiple higher order performance domains and the relevant lower order performance attributes may not drive satisfaction. An adoption of our modeling approach can help service providers make resource allocation decisions across performance domains and identify the micro-level performance levers that they can pull to manage satisfaction levels of their business clients.