PCAOB Held its First Annual Economic Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's Center for Economic Analysis, in conjunction with the Journal of Accounting Research, today held its first annual economic conference on Auditing and Capital Markets.

The conference in Washington, DC, was attended by more than 120 researchers from around the world.

"This inaugural conference brought together leading researchers in auditing, economics and finance from around the world to promote a better understanding of the role and impact of auditing in economies," said PCAOB Chairman James R. Doty.

Six working papers, out of more than 80 submitted, were selected for presentation at the conference. They addressed the following topics:

• Internal control weaknesses and financial reporting fraud
• Disclaimer effect of disclosing critical audit matters in the auditor's report
• Credit cycles and financial statement verification
• Audit partner performance: A network perspective
• Consequences of auditor reputation loss: Market reaction, audit fees, auditor change and audit quality in the case of Satyam Ltd. and PwC India
• Do auditor-provided tax services generate knowledge spillover?

The papers were selected for presentation at the conference following a double-blind review by a program committee of leading academics assembled by the editorial board of the Journal of Accounting Research and Professor Luigi Zingales, the Center's Founding Director and the Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance and the David G. Booth Faculty Fellow at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Other conference paper submissions addressed topics including the role of the audit in capital formation and economic growth, industrial organization of the audit industry, economic and social incentives in the audit profession, economic effects of auditing standards, and effects of audit and financial reporting failures on financial markets.

"The conference is a key opportunity for us to interact with the academic community to foster economic research that will help inform the PCAOB's oversight activities," said Professor Zingales. "The overall quality of submissions was extremely high, and we regretted having to decline so many very good papers."

The Center, which began operation earlier this year, was established to study the role and relevance of the audit in capital formation and investor protection, and to encourage related economic research.

The conference agenda and working papers presented are available on the PCAOB website through November 30, 2014. After this date, interested parties should contact the authors to obtain the most current versions of the papers.