External Auditing vs Statutory Committee Auditing: The Italian Evidence

Abstract

The Italian Corporate Law Reform introduced a compulsory independent external auditor. In the past, only listed companies were required to be audited by external auditors, while non‐listed companies were audited by the Board of Statutory Auditors regulated by the Italian Civil Code. The reform separated the responsibilities of administrative and financial auditing: statutory auditors were left in charge of administrative auditing, while financial auditing was assigned to external auditors, leaving a selected number of companies with the possibility of keeping the statutory auditors in charge of financial auditing as well. An empirical analysis was conducted on a sample of companies, aimed at assessing whether external auditors – compared to statutory auditors – generally granted a higher quality of auditing. To assess the quality of auditing, the reliability of annual reports was considered, examining the discretionary accrual levels.