IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apfiec/v18y2008i9p715-731.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does leverage influence auditor choice? A cross-country analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Geraldine Broye
  • Laurent Weill

Abstract

This article investigates the impact of legal environment on the relationship between leverage and auditor choice in 10 European countries. We demonstrate that the relationship between the choice of a high-quality auditor and firm leverage varies significantly across countries. This finding suggests the absence of a systematic demand for auditing to mitigate agency problems between insiders and debtholders. These differences are explained through legal environment indicators. We create in this aim an index to measure auditor liability exposure. Our results provide evidence that the stronger the protection of creditor rights and disclosure requirements, the higher the demand for audit quality by highly-leveraged companies. Inversely, the auditor liability exposure has a negative impact on the link between leverage and auditor choice.

Suggested Citation

  • Geraldine Broye & Laurent Weill, 2008. "Does leverage influence auditor choice? A cross-country analysis," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(9), pages 715-731.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:apfiec:v:18:y:2008:i:9:p:715-731
    DOI: 10.1080/09603100701222325
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09603100701222325
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09603100701222325?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. C. Piot & A. Schatt, 2010. "La réglementation de l'audit est-elle dans l'intérêt public : quelques enseignements du modèle français," Post-Print halshs-00534758, HAL.
    2. José Luis Esparza-Aguilar & Domingo García-Pérez-de-Lema & Antonio Duréndez, 2016. "The effect of accounting information systems on the performance of Mexican micro, small and medium-sized family firms," Tourism Economics, , vol. 22(5), pages 1104-1120, October.
    3. Reiner Quick & Niklas Schenk & Florian Schmidt & Thilo Towara, 2018. "The impact of corporate governance on auditor choice: evidence from Germany," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 22(2), pages 251-283, June.
    4. Heuser, Simon & Quick, Reiner & Schmidt, Florian, 2015. "Die Anbieterkonzentration auf dem deutschen Prüfungsmarkt – Eine empirische Untersuchung der Jahre 2010-2013," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 69(1), pages 81-109.
    5. Reheul, Anne-Mie & Van Caneghem, Tom & Verbruggen, Sandra, 2011. "Auditor choice in the Belgian nonprofit sector: a behavioral perspective," Working Papers 2011/36, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    6. Jamel Azibi & Hubert Tondeur & Mohamed Tahar Rajhi, 2010. "Auditor choice and institutional investor characteristics after the Enron scandal in the French context," Post-Print hal-00481076, HAL.
    7. Leif Atle Beisland & Roy Mersland & R. Oystein Strøm, 2012. "Audit Quality and Corporate Governance: Evidence from the Microfinance Industry," Working Papers CEB 12-034, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Mertzanis, Charilaos & Marashdeh, Hazem & Houcine, Asma, 2024. "Do financing constraints affect the financial integrity of firms?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 220-240.
    9. Aladdin Dwekat & Zeena Mardawi & Islam Abdeljawad, 2018. "Corporate Governance and Auditor Quality Choice: Evidence from Palestinian Corporations," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 8(2), pages 47-53.
    10. Giuseppe Iuliano & Gaetano Matonti, 2015. "Do big 4 audit companies detect earnings management and report it in the audit opinion? Empirical evidence from italian non-listed firms," ESPERIENZE D'IMPRESA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(2), pages 5-43.
    11. Efstathios Kirkos & Charalambos Spathis & Yannis Manolopoulos, 2010. "Audit‐firm group appointment: an artificial intelligence approach," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(1), pages 1-17, January.
    12. duréndez gómez-guillamón, Antonio luis & maté sanchez-val, Mariluz, 2012. "The geographical factor in the determination of audit quality," Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 287-310.
    13. Nurah Musa Al-Lozi, 2017. "The Impact of Corporate Governance on Auditor Selection: An Empirical Study on Service Companies in Jordan," Journal of Social Sciences (COES&RJ-JSS), , vol. 6(4), pages 886-901, October.
    14. Maarten Corten & Tensie Steijvers & Nadine Lybaert, 2015. "The demand for auditor services in wholly family-owned private firms: the moderating role of generation," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 1-26, January.
    15. Li‐Ying Huang & Gene C. Lai & Erin Lu & Michael McNamara, 2020. "Auditor quality, audit fees, organizational structure, and risk taking in the US life insurance industry," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 23(2), pages 151-182, June.
    16. Ann Vanstraelen & Caren Schelleman, 2017. "Auditing private companies: what do we know?," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(5), pages 565-584, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:apfiec:v:18:y:2008:i:9:p:715-731. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAFE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.