AUDIT MARKET STRUCTURE AND FINANCIAL REPORTING QUALITY OF LISTED DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated effect of audit market structure on the financial reporting quality of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. Longitudinal research design was employed and the population of the study consisted 14 listed deposit money banks. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 11 banks for the period 2012-2022. Secondary data were obtained from annual reports of sampled banks.  Descriptive statistics and panel data estimation techniques were employed for the data analysis. The results showed that market share instability (t-stat =2.042; p <0.05) had a positive and significant effect on the financial reporting quality. This implied that auditors are significantly more likely to issue a quality financial report when they have high market share instability.  On the side of control variable, audit tenure had a positive and significant effect of financial reporting quality given (t-stat. =3.652, p <0.01). The study concluded that audit market instability   leads to higher financial reporting quality This study recommended that management of banks should partner with auditing firm that has market share instability as this will help audit firms to achieve scale economies in audit technology and resources.