Long-term audit engagements and opinion shopping: Spanish evidence

Abstract

Auditor tenure is an issue that has attracted considerable attention recently. This interest has focused mainly on determining whether long-term audit contracts improve the quality of the service. So far, research has failed to provide a definite answer to this question. In the face of this lack of consensus, we wish to analyze the relationship between the length of the audit contract and auditor independence. Specifically, using a model that includes control variables as proxies for the auditor’s economic incentives, we analyze whether long-term audit contracts increase the possibility of a company’s engaging in opinion shopping. We develop an opinion shopping model, together with univariate and logistic regression models. Our results show that the longer the audit engagement, the lower the probability of opinion shopping. The implications for mandatory auditor rotation regulation are also discussed.