Since DeAngelo's study (1981) on audit quality, the latter has been a topic well discussed in the international accounting literature; however, there is little evidence about audit quality in the financial market. In Brazil, studies on audit quality began only in the 2000s, although without a specific focus on banks. The purpose of this study was to identify the quality determinants of audit work in Brazilian banking institutions. Using the practice of earnings management as a proxy for audit quality - more specifically, the discretionary accruals related to the process of the constitution of the Loan Loss Provision (LLP) - tests were performed based on the quarterly information of commercial and multipleservice banks and savings banks from 2001 to 2012. Empirical tests have shown that the quality of audit work has several types of relationships as follows: negative with the client importance level for the auditor; negative with the works after the sixth year of the contract; positive with the establishment of the Audit Committee by the banks; positive with the judgment of punitive administrative proceedings against independent auditors; and positive with the level of rigor of the regulatory environment. Of the tested hypotheses, three were not confirmed empirically. The first hypothesis predicted an association between audit quality and the auditor degree of specialization in the banking industry. The second hypothesis predicted that audit quality would be negatively correlated with the degree of concentration of audit activity within the National Financial System (Sistema Financeiro Nacional - SFN). The third hypothesis predicted that audit quality would be lower when the auditorclient relationship is of a short term. The results of the study contribute to the debate concerning the role of auditors in the transparency and solidity of the financial system, including their role as a complementary or auxiliary supervisor.
Audit; Quality; Manipulation; Discretion; Banks
