Fool Me Once, Shame on You; Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me: The Long‐Term Impact of Arthur Andersen's Demise on Partners' Audit Quality
研究发现，亲身经历安达信倒闭的审计合伙人，其后续审计质量更高，表现为客户更少出现错报和小额盈利，且审计费用更高。这对审计委员会选择合伙人和事务所制定合伙人分配政策有参考价值。
ABSTRACT Although recent evidence suggests that individual audit partners explain a substantial portion of the variation in audit quality proxies, much less is known about what determines an audit partner's quality. Psychology and behavioral economics theories hold that an individual's experiences can have enduring impacts on subsequent behavior. We examine whether auditors' direct exposure to Arthur Andersen's collapse has a long‐term impact on the quality of their audits. Our evidence implies that audit partners who directly experienced Andersen's demise impose stricter monitoring evident in their clients exhibiting a lower propensity for misstatements and small profits, and paying higher audit fees. Importantly, these findings reconcile with research in finance and economics implying that firsthand experiences matter more to subsequent behavior than general economic conditions or secondhand or thirdhand experiences. Collectively, the results shed light on one facet of how partners' audit quality evolves over time. Our findings suggest that major failures associated with the audit firm in which an auditor works can ultimately result in these affected individuals later delivering higher audit quality, which should benefit audit committees in partner selection decisions and audit firms in designing partner assignment policies.