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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether gender diversity of audit committees has a significant impact on the firm's earnings management.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a performance‐adjusted discretionary accrual model to examine the association between gender variables and the firm's earnings management. Regression analysis is applied using 320 firms from the S&P Small Cap 600.FindingsThe authors find consistent evidence to show that the presence of a female director on the audit committee constrains earnings management by increasing negative (income‐decreasing) discretionary accruals.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research can explore the behavior of female managers by applying the gender theory. Furthermore, the paper's evidence has implications for regulators and policy makers, since the presence of a female director in the audit committee may affect management decisions and audit quality in a positive way. Therefore, gender diversity on the board should be more strongly emphasized. Moreover, the presence of female members on the board may further enhance public confidence.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the existing literature on gender in four aspects. First, this research provides new evidence to reinforce the existing gender literature that women are more risk averse, cautious and ethical than men. Second, the findings showcase that gender theory can be applied into the research of management behavior. Third, the findings are significantly important in contemporary corporate governance discussions over the SOX enactment and audit committee characteristics Fourth, this study sheds further light on the importance of having women on corporate boards and the positive outcomes that are associated with it, thereby serving as an encouraging force against the existence of the glass ceiling effect.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the adoption of convergent-International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in China affects the audit fees of initial public offerings (IPO) firms. An empirical regression analysis using panel data for 1,094 nonfinancial IPOs (excluding season equity offers) of A-shares listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges between 2003 and 2012 is adopted. The results reveal that audit fees increase following convergent-IFRS adoption in China and additionally suggest that convergent-IFRS adoption eases the intense price competition that previously existed in China's audit market and thus has important policy implications for regulators. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study represents the first reported attempt to adopt the IPO setting to examine the effects of convergent-IFRS adoption on audit fees and fills the gap in literature. Using a setting of IPOs enables this paper to further exclude the influence of quasi-rents derived from low-balling after initial audit engagement when testing audit fees.

ABSTRACT
This study examines the impact of the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) policy in 2007 to eliminate the Form 20-F reconciliation requirements for foreign cross-listed firms following the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on audit pricing. We find that the elimination of this requirement decreases audit fees, and this fee decrease is less prominent when foreign cross-listed firms engage industry-specialist auditors. Our findings reinforce prior studies that found that managers of foreign cross-listed firms have a greater tendency to manage earnings when there is a need to reconcile earnings (Bradshaw, Bushee, and Miller 2004; Lang, Raedy, and Wilson 2006; Kang, Krishnan, Wolfe, and Yi 2012), and thus eliminating the Form 20-F reconciliation impedes managerial manipulation of earnings, decrease financial reporting risk, and audit fees. The results also provide direct evidence to support the SEC's (2007) claim that eliminating the Form 20-F reconciliation would reduce the preparation costs and regulatory burdens for foreign issuers.

This paper examines (1) whether auditor type affects initial public offering (IPO) pricing; (2) whether the effect of IPO pricing is different for clients with different ownership structures. We find that (1) firms being audited by Big 4 accounting firms receive IPO premium while others being audited by local accounting firms do not; (2) Big 4 auditors receive higher audit fees than China's Top 10 or small local auditors. This paper extends the prior research (e.g., Kumar, P and N Langberg (2009). Corporate fraud and investment distortions in efficient capital markets. The RAND Journal of Economics, 40, 144–172) that reduces agency conflicts between shareholders and manager (by means of better audit quality) and also reconciles corporate misreporting and investment distortions.

The public controversies over the implementation of Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 157 (SFAS 157) and its impact on the recent financial crisis motivate us to examine the association between fair values and reporting lags. With a sample of U.S. banking institutions, we find that less verifiable fair value information is associated with longer earnings announcement lag and audit report lag. Longer earnings announcement lags resulting from less verifiable fair value information are due to the additional time of managerial estimations. Less verifiable fair values may also result in longer audit report lags due to the added training for auditors. Our study extends the current literature on fair values and reporting lags. Our findings contribute to the contemporary research on the timeliness of financial information disclosures which promotes the efficient functioning of the economy. Moreover, the findings of our study may be of interest to the global regulators, investors and other financial statement users.

The extant literature has provided a lot of evidence that supports positive associations between participation in activities and health. However, the health effects of high or low risk financial activities (FAs) are presently ambiguous, especially across age groups. With a sample of 313 subjects in Taiwan, this study examines whether participation in high or low risk FAs (savings, stocks, mutual funds, and real estate) benefits self-rated health (SRH) in middle-aged and older adults. We find that (1) savings rates are consistently high for both middle-aged and older cohorts. However, middle-aged adult participation rate in FAs, in terms of stocks, mutual funds and real estate, is higher than that for older adults. (2) High risk FAs, especially stock investments, have a positive effect on SRH in middle-aged adults.