Do Joint Audits Improve or Impair Audit Quality?
通过理论模型挑战了“联合审计提高审计质量”的传统观点，发现一大一小事务所联合审计会引发搭便车问题，反而降低审计证据精度，并给出了可检验的预测。
ABSTRACT Conventional wisdom holds that joint audits would improve audit quality by enhancing audit evidence precision because “Two heads are better than one.” Our paper challenges this wisdom. We show that joint audits by one big firm and one small firm may impair audit quality, because, in that situation, joint audits induce a free‐riding problem between audit firms and reduce audit evidence precision. We further derive a set of empirically testable predictions comparing audit evidence precision and audit fees under joint and single audits. This paper, the first theoretical study of joint audits, contributes to a better understanding of the economic consequences of joint audits on audit quality.