Partner wealth and audit quality: evidence from the United States
用美国审计合伙人住房市值衡量个人财富，发现财富越多的合伙人审计质量越高，表现为更少重大重述、更少SEC意见函和更高审计费用，且非客户匹配所致。
Abstract Using the market values of audit partners’ houses as a measure of their personal wealth, we find that wealthier U.S. partners provide higher-quality audits, as evidenced by fewer material restatements, fewer material SEC comment letters, and higher audit fees. A battery of falsification tests shows that these findings are not driven by the matching of wealthier partners with clients with higher financial reporting quality. Our additional analyses suggest two explanations: greater personal wealth both incentivizes partners to exert more effort in delivering high-quality audits and reveals partners’ audit competence.