Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Economic Research Fellowships Program 2018, USA

Ideal candidates for fellowship positions include:

• Tenured or tenure-track junior faculty members in economics, finance, accounting, or a related area; and,
• Doctoral students who have completed all course work in a doctoral program in economics, finance, accounting, or a related area, and are actively performing research or writing a dissertation.

Topics of Interest

Fellows will conduct economic research on topics relevant to the oversight, standard-setting, and other activities of the PCAOB in protecting investors and the public interest.  

While this is not an exhaustive list, some topics of particular interest to the PCAOB include:

• The market impact of audit regulation and oversight including research that may inform PCAOB post-implementation reviews;
• The economic effects of the application of audit standards to audits of emerging growth companies, brokers and dealers, and public companies in other industries;
• The application of regulatory economics to auditing, including research that may inform the need for and/or development of new PCAOB rules and standards; or research on the costs and benefits of financial statement audits and/or audits of internal control over financial reporting;
• The role of the audit and audit regulation in capital formation and economic growth and how economic theory and analysis can be used and further developed to enhance the effectiveness of PCAOB programs;
• The business model and industrial organization of audit firms, including, for example, research on audit firm structure, governance and incentive structures within audit firms, staffing of audit engagements, and staff-to-partner leverage and implications for audit quality;
• The competition and concentration in the audit profession and implications for audit quality;
• The growth of advisory and consulting services provided by accounting firms and effects on audit quality;
• The global network firms, including, for example, research on the consistency of audit quality practices among network affiliates, and on audits of multinational companies;
• The economic and social incentives in auditing, including research on heuristics, biases, and social networks;
• The principal-agent relationships present in auditing;
• The applications of behavioral economics to auditing, financial reporting, and the formulation of auditing standards;
• The effects of audit and financial reporting failures on financial markets, and research related to the auditor’s consideration of fraud;
• The economic and audit quality impact of international regulatory audit reforms;
• The proxies for and indicators of audit quality and their potential usage and impact, including, for example, research on audit quality indicators included in the PCAOB concept release; and,
• The topics included on the PCAOB research agenda, specifically research related to audit firm quality control systems; the auditor’s role in relation to company performance measures, including non-GAAP measures; the use of data and technology in the conduct of audits; and the auditor’s consideration of noncompliance with laws and regulations.

Candidates with questions about the scope of PCAOB-generated data available to fellows may contact staff at ERA_Fellows@pcaobus.org.