The Audit firm rotation rule: a review of the literature

There has been considerable interest in mandatory audit firm rotation (RR) as a means to protect auditor independence. A small number of countries, including Italy, have a legal requirement for audit firms to be rotated after a maximum specified period (1 out of the G7 countries and 2 out of the 15 European Union countries before the 2004 enlargement). In 2003, and in a 2004 update, the independent academics of SDA Bocconi School of Management studied the impact of mandatory audit firm rotation in Italy (SDA Bocconi School of Management 2003) and concluded that the policy seems to lead to additional cost, greater concentration of work amongst the largest audit firms, negative impact on audit quality (most noticeably in the years immediately after the rotation) and is ignored by the stock market. The aim of the present study is to give a rather complete framework of the available studies on the topic.