Ensuring audit quality through regulation: modelling how regulation can change audit partner behaviour

An audit enhances the reliability of financial information, which is an important driver of an efficient capital market. To ensure regulation achieves its intended aim of enhancing the quality of audits delivered, it is important that regulators understand how their regulation can change audit partner behaviour. Audit partners' actions drive audit quality, and their reactions to regulation influence whether regulation improves or worsens audit quality. This project will develop and validate a model of how characteristics of regulation can change audit partner behaviour. Guidelines will be developed to enable regulators to effectively use the model to improve regulation setting and monitoring.