Auditors and Corporate Governance: Evidence from the Public Sector
Type
working paper
Date Issued
2008
Author(s)
Abstract
Corporate auditors review and evaluate financial statements. To enhance independence the selection process and mandatory auditor rotation requirements have been debated intensively. The available empirical evidence is not conclusive and suffers from serious endogeneity problems. We propose learning from the public sector in which auditors play a similar role and present empirical evidence on the impact of auditor term length and rotation requirements on government performance at the US State level. We find evidence indicating that relatively short as well as extended auditor terms have a negative, and rotation requirements have a positive effect on state credit ratings.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Publisher
CREMA Working Papers
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
70913