The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Auditors’ Remote Work during COVID-19
研究了COVID-19疫情对上市公司审计质量的影响，发现疫情初期审计质量下降，且审计报告延迟提交的可能性显著增加，为监管机构和审计公司提供了关于远程工作效果的参考。
SUMMARY The COVID-19 pandemic introduced unprecedented challenges to the audits of public companies. Audit firms, in response, dedicated significant resources to maintain high-quality audit procedures. We leverage a difference-in-differences design to examine the effects of the pandemic on audit outcomes. Despite audit firm efforts, we find evidence of a decline in audit quality in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, in the early days of the pandemic, the SEC made available a unique one-time, 45-day extension to file the audited annual report. In this time period, we observe a significant increase in the likelihood of delayed filings, including those attributed to the auditors’ work. Our study informs regulators and audit firms about the broad impact of an unprecedented stressor on the audit process and on the efficacy of remote work. JEL Classifications: M4; M41; M42.