Paper Title
Auditor Expertise and Earnings Forecast Quality

Abstract
This study examines the association between the quality of management earnings forecast, measured by forecast bias and accuracy, and the Big Four industry auditor specialists. This paper focuses on a sample of Taiwan listed firms where management earnings forecast must be reviewed and signed by the two signing auditors as well as by an audit firm. We find that clients of signing auditor specialists, either alone or in conjunction with firm-level specialists, have lower forecast bias and higher forecast accuracy. We, however, find no significant association between industry specialization at the firm level alone and the quality of earnings forecasts. These results document that differential earnings forecast quality due to the Big Four industry-specialist is mainly driven by signing auditor specialists, rather than firm-level industry specialists. Keywords - Partner industry specialist, audit firm industry specialist, management earnings forecasts