We examine the effects of the auditor's insurance role on audit quality and reporting conservatism. The investor pays for the auditor's penalty through the audit fees and expects to collect a portion of it—when the investor recovers the entire expected penalty, the insurance role is perfect. When the investment is exogenous, consistent with Watts' (2003a, 2003b) argument, we find that an increase in the auditor's insurance role improves audit quality and conservatism, because conservatism helps to reduce the auditor's legal liability. However, when the investment level is endogenous, we find that the investment level and conservatism decrease with increases in the auditor's insurance role, because conservatism helps to mitigate the deadweight loss of the legal liability cost.

No abstract

We have demonstrated the fabrication of both armchair and zigzag epitaxial graphene nanoribbon (GNR) devices on 4H–SiC using a polymer-assisted sublimation growth method. The phenomenon of terrace step formation has traditionally introduced the risk of GNR deformation along sidewalls, but a polymer-assisted sublimation method helps mitigate this risk. Each type of 50 nm wide GNR is examined electrically and optically (armchair and zigzag), with the latter method being a check on the quality of the GNR devices and the former using alternating current to investigate resistance attenuation from frequencies above 100 Hz. Rates of attenuation are determined for each type of GNR device, revealing subtle suggested differences between armchair and zigzag GNRs.