Adults in the room? The auditor and dividends in small firms: evidence from a natural experiment
Journal article, Peer reviewed
Published version
Permanent lenke
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3130506Utgivelsesdato
2024Metadata
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- NTNU Handelshøyskolen [1634]
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Originalversjon
10.1007/s00181-024-02603-1Sammendrag
We examine the effect of auditing on dividends in small private firms. We hypothesize that auditing can constrain dividends by way of promoting accounting conservatism. We use register data on private Norwegian firms and random variation induced by the introduction of a policy allowing small private firms to forgo the use of an auditor to estimate the effect of auditing on dividend payout. Identification is obtained by a regression discontinuity around the arbitrary thresholds for the policy. Propensity score matching is used to create a balanced synthetic control. We consistently find that forgoing auditing led to a significant increase in dividends in small private firms.