A Study of Female Presence in the Audit Process on Audit Quality

Abstract

In this paper, we conduct a review of the literature on the under-representation of women as audit partners and audit committee chairs, and assess audit quality when they hold these roles. By using the U.S. sample from 2016 to 2019, our analyses show that firms with female audit partners and/or audit committee chairwomen are more likely to have lower discretionary accruals, implement more effective internal controls, and are less likely to misstate financial reports than are all male pairs. Our paper serves as a resource for those seeking to understand gender differences and to use it as a starting point to illuminate the debate on gender-specific outcomes in the auditing service industry. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: M14; M42.