The Role of Auditor Quality and Asset Reliability in Equity Valuation

In this survey, the impact of auditor quality and asset reliability on equity valuation has been studied. It has used the results of Richardson et al (2005), for categorizing asset and liabilities in four levels as low, medium, high and not classified groups. The criteria of high quality auditor were three independent factors as audit tenure, audit firm size and auditor industry specialization. The questions of this study were as follows: Does auditor quality influence the market's valuation of assets and is the mitigating effect of a quality auditor more pronounced for low or medium reliability asset measures? The results showed that audit tenure does not affect auditor quality but audit firm size and auditor industry specialization improve that. The second hypothesis which indicates auditor quality has no significant effect on market's perception of high reliability accruals is approved.