0000000001189636

AUTHOR

María Consuelo Pucheta Martínez

El éxito de los procesos de fusión en el mercado de auditoría: el caso de PriceWaterhouseCoopers

Este trabajo ofrece evidencia sobre el resultado de la fusión de Price Waterhouse y Coopers & Lybrand respecto a 2 de los objetivos que pretendían alcanzarse con la operación empresarial, como son el crecimiento de la nueva compa˜nía en términos de cifra de negocios y el aumento de la cuota de mercado. El estudio, aplicando metodología utilizada en trabajos anteriores, comprende el periodo 1997-2003, incluyendo 5 a˜nos posteriores a la fusión, que se llevó a cabo en 1998. Los resultados revelan que PriceWaterhouse y Coopers & Lybrand hubiesen alcanzado una cuota de mercado y una facturación inferior a la de sus competidores más directos en caso de no haberse fusionado, aunque las diferencia…

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Disciplinary Sanctions and Audit Quality: Empirical Evidence from an External Oversight System

This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of disciplinary sanctions on audit quality, based on the external oversight system set up in Spain in the early nineties. Specifically, we examine the effects of the sanctions imposed by the Institute of Accounting and Auditing (ICAC), a government regulatory agency independent from the auditing industry. To proxy for audit quality, two client-specific earnings quality indicators are considered; i.e. the likelihood of loss reporting and abnormal accruals. According to our results, the Spanish external oversight system does not penalise isolated but structural audit malpractice, since sanctioned auditors exhibit lower average audit quality…

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Reactions of the Spanish capital market to qualified audit reports

Since mandatory auditing of financial statements was first established in Spain, very few studies have been conducted to test the information content of audit reports in the Spanish capital market. The aim of this study is, then, to test empirically whether there is a relationship between audit qualifications and stock prices in the context of the Spanish market. We have used the event study methodology for this purpose. Our findings show that qualified audit reports do not have information value for investors.

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The Stock Market Reaction to the Enron-Andersen Affair in Spain

2Universidad Jaume I de Castellon This paper investigates whether listed Spanish companies audited by Andersen have suffered any negative economic impact due to the scandal surrounding Andersen’s work in Enron Corporation. To that end, we have measured the economic consequences, if any, of Andersen’s loss of reputation by examining the reaction in terms of movements in the stock prices of its client companies using an event study methodology. We have analysed abnormal returns on the stock prices of all firms listed in the Spanish Interconnected Market around two event dates: the date of Andersen’s public admission that it had destroyed significant financial documents related to Enron Corp. …

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The engagement of auditors in the reporting of corporate social responsibility disclosure

In this research, we aim to examine how large auditing firms and audit/non‐audit fees affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. We show that the big four auditing firms and the audit and non‐audit fees paid by audited firms encourage CSR reporting. Overall, our findings suggest that big auditing firms play a relevant role in CSR disclosure, which may help to mitigate informative asymmetries between managers and stakeholders. Furthermore, audit and non‐audit fees paid by audited companies promote voluntary non‐financial information disclosure. These findings should be of interest to policymakers given the relevant role that CSR disclosure may play in the decision‐making proces…

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Do women directors behave more ethically than men directors of the audit committees with respect to the quality of the accounting information?

In this analysis, we aim at investigating how audit committees (ACs) gender diversity impacts on the quality of financial information, calculated with the opinion that external auditors give firms in the audit report. We hypothesize that there is a negative relation between gender diversity on ACs and the likelihood of receiving a qualification with errors, non-compliance and the omission of information, and a positive association between gender diversity on ACs and the probability of disclosing qualifications with uncertainties. The results show a negative association between the proportion of women directors on ACs, the proportion of institutional women directors on ACs and ACs chaired by…

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