Auditor Tenure and Perceptions of Audit Quality
分析投资者和信息中介如何感知审计任期，发现任期越长，投资者对盈余质量的感知越好，且盈余对股票排名和预测的影响也越大，支持审计任期提升审计质量的假设。
We analyze how investors and information intermediaries perceive auditor tenure. Using earnings response coefficients from returns-earnings regressions as a proxy for investor perceptions of earnings quality, we document a positive association between investor perceptions of earnings quality and tenure. Further, we find that the influence of reported earnings on stock rankings becomes larger with extended tenure, although the association between debt ratings and reported earnings does not vary with tenure. Finally, we find that the influence of past earnings on one-year-ahead earnings forecasts becomes greater as tenure increases. In general, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that investors and information intermediaries perceive auditor tenure as improving audit quality. One implication of our study is that imposing mandatory limits on the duration of the auditor-client relationship might impose unintended costs on capital market participants.