Digital Commons Network^™

Two key assumptions underlying the regulation of U.S. financial reporting are the need to mandate the certification of financial statements, and to require that this certification be performed by independent auditors. Private incentives to demand (and supply) certification are thought to be insufficient, and independence is thought to be necessary for quality audit. In this study, we collect archival data on certification activity in the economy, and conduct a field experiment on an unregulated online market for certification of baseball cards to investigate the validity of these assumptions. Our results show that: (1) Private markets for certification services are ubiquitous …