We examine the impact on share prices of firms whose CEOs and CFOs certify their financial statements under oath, pursuant to the administrative order issued by the SEC on June 27, 2002. We hypothesize that (1) the certification provides assurance to investors by making disclosure more credible and by reducing information asymmetry between owners and management, and (2) the assurance value of certification is reflected in the stock price of the certifying company. Overall, the empirical results are consistent with our hypotheses. We observe, on average, positive abnormal returns for firms whose CEOs/CFOs certified their financial statements by August 14, 2002. Based on an analysis of bid-ask spreads, certifying firms experienced a significant decline in information asymmetry after certification. In cross-sectional analyses, we find abnormal returns are positively associated with firms that were under investigation, that used Andersen as their auditor, and that practiced aggressive revenue recognition.

SUMMARY: Using earnings response coefficients (ERCs) from returns-earnings regressions as a proxy for investor perceptions of earnings quality, we analyze how investors perceive reported earnings when companies with interlocking audit committee directors are audited by the same audit firm (hereafter, AC director-auditor interlocking). Our empirical results show that the extent of AC director-auditor interlocking is significantly and positively associated with ERCs. By dividing the sample period into pre-Sarbanes-Oxley Act (pre-SOX, 1998 through 2001) and post-SOX (2002 through 2010) periods, we find that the significantly positive effect of AC director-auditor interlocking on ERCs only exists in the post-SOX period, indicating that investors have reacted more positively to AC director-auditor interlocking after the implementation of SOX, which requires that audit committee members be independent. Finally, using financial expertise data for the period 2003 to 2010, we find that the positive relationship between the extent of AC director-auditor interlocking and ERCs is more pronounced when interlocking audit committee directors are financial experts than when they are not financial experts.

SUMMARY: In this paper we decompose productivity growth into four components: efficiency change, technical progress, information technology (IT) capital accumulation, and human capital accumulation. We analyze data on the operations of 51 public accounting firms in Taiwan for the years 1993 and 2003, and find that productivity growth was driven primarily by the accumulation of IT capital and human capital. We also find that the difference in productivity growth between Big 4 and non-Big 4 accounting firms is attributable to technical progress and, especially, IT capital accumulation. Further, our multiple regression results indicate that accounting firms that had high growth in non-audit services (NAS) during the 11-year period enjoyed significantly higher productivity growth through greater IT capital and human capital accumulation than firms that remained focused on traditional audit services.