ABSTRACT We examine the relationship between audit quality and office-level auditor turnover. Using resumes of over 106,000 Big 4 auditors, we find that audit offices with higher turnover have a greater likelihood of client annual report restatements. This detrimental effect is more pronounced when the departing auditors are more experienced and when the office faces tighter human capital constraints and is primarily attributable to voluntary turnover. Further, such negative effect is borne mostly by complex clients and intangible-intensive clients but is weakened for clients with greater product similarity to the client portfolio of the audit office. Last, the impact of office-level turnover on audit quality persists after controlling for firm-level turnover. Our findings inform the current policy debate on whether and to what extent audit firms should disclose auditor turnover as a potential indicator of audit quality. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: M42.

中文翻译：

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个人审计师流动率和审计质量——来自美国审计办公室的大样本证据


摘要我们研究审计质量与办公室级审计师流动率之间的关系。通过使用四大会计师事务所超过 106,000 名审计师的简历，我们发现人员流动率较高的审计办公室更有可能对客户年度报告进行重述。当即将离职的审计师经验更丰富，且办事处面临更严格的人力资本限制（主要归因于自愿离职）时，这种不利影响会更加明显。此外，这种负面影响主要由复杂客户和无形资产密集型客户承担，但对于产品与审计办公室客户组合更加相似的客户来说，这种负面影响会减弱。最后，在控制了公司层面的人员流动后，办公室层面的人员流动对审计质量的影响仍然存在。我们的研究结果为当前关于审计公司是否以及在多大程度上应该披露审计师流动率作为审计质量的潜在指标的政策辩论提供了信息。数据可用性：数据可从文中引用的公共来源获得。 JEL 分类：M42。