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This study examines the relationship of auditor tenure and audit quality in four European countries, namely Germany, France, Italy and Spain, with the innovative GMM (Generalized Methods of Moments) model during the period from 2005 to 2013.Two GMM methods are used with two alternative definitions of crisis – the main and the robustness method. The results agree regardless of the fact that some of the control variables are excluded in the robustness test.The results support the finding that in Spain, there is an impact of auditors’ long-term tenure on discretionary accruals, affecting auditors’ quality and independence indirectly. In addition, the crisis affected Germany and France as far as the change in negative and positive values of GDP is concerned. In this respect, the crisis affected the above two countries when the years before and after the crisis are considered as a robustness check. The results contain important implications for accountant regulators and policy makers.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the hypothesis of feedback trading along with the short-term return dynamics of three size-based stock portfolios of Athens Stock Exchange during the Greek debt crisis period. Design/methodology/approach To this end, the authors employ for the first time in the literature two well-known models while the variance equation is modeled by means of a multivariate EGARCH specification. As a robustness test an innovative nested-EGARCH model is also employed. Findings The assumption that positive feedback trading is an important component of the short-term return movements across the three stock portfolios receives significant support. Moreover, the volatility interdependence, both in magnitude and sign, is almost similar across the three models. Finally, bad news originating from the portfolio of small stock appears to have a higher impact on the volatility of large and medium size stock returns than good news during the Greek debt crisis period. Originality/value The methodology is innovative and the authors test for the first time the feedback trading hypothesis across different size stocks. The authors believe that the results might entail significant policy implications for investors and market regulators.