In this study, we investigate the effect of assurance service of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports on the relationship between CSR performance and firms’ financial performance. Specifically, we question whether firms having their CSR performance assured to benefit from such assurance services. Theory suggests that investors apply a lower discount rate when valuing firms if information from the firms is credible. Using a sample of 5040 large U.S. companies, we find that the CSR performance is positively associated with the firms’ financial performance on average and that there is a significant effect of CSR assurance service on the relationship between CSR performance and firms’ financial performance. This implies that firms having their CSR reports assured by external experts experience much higher financial performance than firms without such assurance service. Our findings are consistent with the prior studies and support our argument with regard to the CSR assurance service. The findings have implications for firms considering CSR assurance and accounting professionals for their opportunities.

We investigate whether macroeconomic uncertainty on the future economic prospects faced by all market participants is associated with audit fee premiums and audit quality. Following Moon et al. (2019), we focus on audit fee premiums and differentiate auditor-level premiums from engagement-specific premiums. We find a significantly positive association between macroeconomic uncertainty and auditor premiums, consistent with an increased auditor-level quality-enhancing effort following high macroeconomic uncertainty. We show that macroeconomic uncertainty has a direct negative association with audit quality and a positive indirect association through the mediation of auditor premiums. Further analyses reveal that auditors of different attributes respond differently to macroeconomic uncertainty. The indirect effect of macroeconomic uncertainty on audit quality through auditor premiums only exists among clients of non-Big 4 auditors or non-national industry specialist auditors. Overall, our study provides insights into whether and how auditors respond to macroeconomic uncertainty in maintaining audit quality. Our findings carry direct public policy implications that regulators should consider macroeconomic conditions as an explicit scoping factor in oversight activities and they should not presume that all auditors respond to uncertainty in the same direction.