Abstract

Auditing standards and regulations in Taiwan require two audit partners to sign their names on the audit report (dual-signature hereafter) since 1983. This paper examines whether audit quality is higher under the dual-signature requirement than under the singlesignature requirement. Empirical results indicate that the dual-signature regime is associated with higher audit quality as proxied by issuing more modified audit opinions, and that such an association exists only for companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, but not for non-publicly traded companies. In addition, the informativeness of earnings and earnings response coefficients are higher under the dual-signature requirement, suggesting that investors perceive higher earnings quality under the dualsignature requirement.  

Keywords

dual-signatureaudit qualityaudit opinion