Audit Market Regulation, Supplier Concentration, and the Quality of Audited Financial Statements

Abstract

In its recently published Green Paper, the European Commission 2010 discusses various reform proposals to enhance the reliability of audits and to re-establish trust in the financial market. The Commission primarily focuses on two topics: increasing auditor independence and reducing the high level of audit market concentration. However, these two topics and the reforms suggested are discussed entirely separately. This dissertation consists of three self-contained, but thematically and methodically related research papers that aim at disentangling the EU-Commission’s separating approach.As reliable financial statements are essential for financial market stability, auditing plays a crucial role in preventing further financial crises. So this dissertation addresses a currently highly observed field of accounting research. By combining micro- and macroeconomic model approaches, this thesis expands the methodology used for investigations in this field of research. This leads to interesting results, which shed new light on the effects of different measures proposed to increase audit quality.