Germar Ebner, Johannes Hottmann, Henning Zülch

• This paper provides additional insights how shareholders perceive error announcements in theGerman enforcement system whose task is to ensure a preventative and sanctioning function viaadverse publicity. Although US research provides large and unambiguous evidence of sanctionswhich are based on capital market reactions, but also personal consequences of re-sponsiblemanagers and auditors, the few studies which iestigated the German enforcement system donot yield comparable results, thereby questioning its efficacy. Building on this, we iestigatewhether firms with error announcements exhibit higher turnover of auditors and audit firmsthan comparable non-error firms in the German setting. In addition, we iestigate the impactof auditor or audit firm changes on accounting quality. Our results suggest that firms with changesof the auditor or audit firm exhibit an increase in accounting quality, which however takesplace already in the time gap between error announcement and auditor change. Consequently, we interpret auditor changes serving as a signal of improved corporate governance, rather thanindeed improving corporate governance.