We find that over six hundred auditors with fewer than 100 SEC clients exit the market
following SOX. Compared to the non-exiting auditors, the exiting auditors are lower
quality, where quality is gauged by: (1) avoidance of AICPA peer reviews and failure to
comply with PCAOB rules, and (2) severity of the peer review and inspection reports. In
addition, clients of exiting auditors receive higher quality auditing from successor
auditors, as captured by a greater likelihood of receiving going concern opinions. Our
results suggest that the PCAOB inspections improve audit quality by incentivizing low
quality auditors to exit the marke