استفاده از حسابرسان چهار بزرگ و جمع آموری پول: بازارهای در حال توسعه و در حال ظهور Use of Big Four auditors and fund raising: Evidence from developing and emerging markets

1. Introduction Improved audit quality is associated with fewer information asymmetries between an organization and its stakeholders (Chen et al., 2011). Prior research suggests that audit quality has real consequences for an organization; the reduced risk caused by lower agency costs improves fund raising possibilities and reduces costs of capital (Kitching, 2009; Gul et al., 2013; Pratoomsuwan, 2012). An indicator variable for use of Big Four auditors is the most commonly used proxy variable for audit quality (Hay et al., 2006), and several studies suggest that use of Big Four auditors is associated with improved fund raising opportunities and lower costs of capital (Boone et al., 2010; Pittman and Fortin, 2004; Mansi et al., 2004). However, recent reviews of audit quality research find that empirical results from this line of research are mixed and highly country-specific (Gul et al., 2013; Eilifsen and Willekens, 2008; Tsipouridou and Spathis, 2012). For instance, Francis and Wang (2008) suggest that Big Four auditors do not universally enforce higher accounting quality. Their study concludes that the importance of auditor choice is dependent on the investor protection level of the country in which the firms are situated. Building on Francis and Wang (1998), Gul et al. (2013) find that cost of debt is lower for firms using Big Four auditors, but the effect is most pronounced in countries with strong investor protection. In a similar vein, El Ghoul et al. (2016a) find that equity financing costs are lower in the presence of Big Four auditors, especially in countries with better institutions governing investor protection and disclosure regulation. Interestingly, their findings suggest that audit quality does not matter in countries with weak investor protection and disclosure regulation. To answer the challenge of Francis and Wang (2008) to learn more about audit quality and its possible consequences in different settings, we turn to the microfinance industry in developing and emerging markets and use a unique hand-collected dataset as our case. Specifically, we analyze the association between Big Four auditors and access to various sources of debt capital.