Management letter comments: Their determinants and their association with financial reporting quality in local government

Abstract

The issuance of management letters (MLs) as part of financial statement audits is a long-standing practice; however, previous studies of MLs are few and no previous research has tested the utility of MLs empirically. This paper reports a study of MLs issued by independent CPA firms pursuant to audits of Florida general purpose local governments. We investigate the determinants of ML comments, finding that such comments are influenced by auditee characteristics and auditor tenure but not by auditor specialization, a proxy for audit quality. Further, we explore the relationship between MLs and financial reporting quality. We observe a negative relationship between first-year ML comments and assessed financial reporting quality. When lagged one year, first-year ML comments bear a positive relationship with financial reporting quality. The absence of ML comments is positively associated with financial reporting quality. Our results suggest that MLs are beneficial to auditees. As such, our study should be interesting to policymakers, users of financial reports, auditees, and auditors.