Sercu, PietVander Bauwhede, HeidiWillekens, Marleen2017-12-022017-12-0220061572-998210.1007/s10645-006-9016-zhttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12127/2214The accounting scandals and the demise of Andersen have increased auditors’ ex ante business risk. As a result, stock markets revised downward the value of the external audit (Callen and Morel (2002); Chaney and Philipich (2002); Krishnamurthy et al. (2002); Asthana et al. (2003)). One commonsensical reaction on behalf of auditors should have been to apply the existing rules more carefully and, thus, issue more non-clean opinions on the financial statements they have audited. This is exactly what we see. Closer scrutiny reveals that the higher incidence of non-clean audit opinions is not due to the (substantial) changes in the audit client list or their balance sheets. This study mirrors earlier results where auditors relaxed their standards following a drop in business risk (Geiger and Raghunandan, (2001), (2002); Francis and Krishnan, (2002)).enFinancial AccountingDe Economist0013-063X5151583344515172479