The effects of Audit Firm Rotation: An event study in Chile Antonio Aninat1 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, School of Management Álvaro Bustos Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, School of Management Julio Riutort Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, School of Management January, 2020 Abstract In order to determine market reaction to an unanticipated audit firm change we carry out an event study of 69 publicly traded Chilean companies (100 % of the non-financial component of the main Chilean Stock Index: IPSA) from 2004 to 2013. We find that the market reacted positively when a company announced the retention of its audit firm for a given year. We rule out possible bias in the informational content of the event. Our result suggests that overall, the costs associated with a company’s audit firm change (start-up costs and know how losses) overshadow the benefits of this change (a reduction in the probability of a value destroying event such as fraud or error). We discuss the implications of this result for the potential implementation of mandatory audit firm rotation in an emerging country such as Chile. We also discuss the possibility of identifying the specific costs and benefits of an audit firm change. JEL: M49, G34 Keywords: Audit, Audit firm, mandatory rotation rule, event study, Chile 1
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[email protected]. Bustos is also a Director of the Center of Corporate Governance UC. We thank Arturo Platt for his comments and Aninat acknowledges the generosity of S.V.S. at granting access to data and information.