This paper reviews empirical studies over the past decades in order to assess what researchers have done about the impact of audit quality on the cost of debt capital. Audit quality encompasses of an external mechanism intended to mitigate information asymmetry by increasing the monitoring of management's actions, limiting managers' opportunistic behavior, and improving the quality of firms' information flows.A stream of literature explains that audit quality of external auditor mechanisms such as auditor size, audit fees, non-audit services and auditor industry specialization are able to contribute towards improving the firm's performance and reducing information asymmetry. The other dimension of value creation is the reduction in the cost of debt capital raised by firms. Theoretically and empirically to some extent, high audit quality of external auditors will lead to lower firm risk, information asymmetry and subsequently, a lower cost of debt capital. This paper aims to provide a critical review of the empirical literature on the effect of audit quality on the cost of debt capital.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.