In this article I examine the constraints that skeptical hypotheses must satisfy in order to be used to raise significant skeptical challenges. I argue that skeptical hypotheses do not have to be logically, metaphysically or epistemically possible. They only need to depict scenarios that are subjectively indistinguishable from the actual world and must provide some indication of how subjects ca...

This research proposes a novel method for ensuring fair governance of a common resource using asymmetric anonymity. We propose a system of resource governance that uses anonymous auditors instead of a regulatory agency. Self-enforcement and mutual enforcement are subject to fraud and collusion. In the proposed governance system, anonymity, often associated with negative online interactions, is ...

Internal and external auditors play an increasingly important role for building up trust and confidence in today’s economic cycle. To ensure effective and efficient audits, current audit standards demand from auditors to gain an indepth understanding of the clients’ business processes. In this context, seminal research results indicate that type and number of documentation formats have a signif...

This experimental study of 96 experienced auditors examines whether auditors’ judgments are influenced by the ‘approach’ used by the auditors in uncertainty assessment and by the ‘framing’ of an audit assertion to be verified. Approach was manipulated by using belief functions and probability theory as the manner in which uncertainty was assessed. Differences in framing were manipulated by stat...

Prior research indicates that auditors encounter difficulty in applying experienced error frequencies to judgments of the probability that an audit objective is violated given a particular transaction cycle. This difficulty may occur because of a mismatch between the organization of this particular judgment task and the organization of auditors' knowledge. We test the effectiveness of two decis...

This paper presents a review of extant literature examining issues relating to auditors’ knowledge of and training in information systems. This review is important due to the rapidly increasing use of technology in business, recent changes in U.S. auditing standards on information technology and internal control, and signals of interest by regulators in possible future standards on auditors’ in...

This study aims at investigating the relationship between age and gender of auditors and their judgment and decision. Population of this study includes dependent auditors engaged in audit firms member of Iranian Association of Certified Public Accountants (IACPA). Random sampling was used and the questionnaireswere distributed among 100 auditors. The methodology of the study is descriptive-surv...

In this paper we propose a version of default logic with the following two properties: (1) defaults with mutually inconsistent justi-cations are never used together in constructing a set of default consequences of a theory; (2) the reasoning formalized by our logic is related to the traditional skeptical mode of default reasoning. Our logic is based on the concept of a skeptical rational extens...

Radical skepticism is the view that we know nothing, or at least next to nothing. Nearly no one actually believes that skepticism is true. Yet it has re­ mained a serious topic of discussion for millennia and it looms large in popular culture. What explains its persistent and widespread appeal? How does the skep­ tic get us to doubt what we ordinarily take ourselves to know? I present evidence ...

Prior research has examined audit pricing for publicly held firms and provided some evidence of a Big 8 premium in pricing. We investigate audit pricing among private firms for the first time, and we compare audit pricing for private and public clients. We present evidence of a pricing premium, on average, for non-Big 5 auditors among large private clients after controlling for other effects. W...