find that debt default increases the likelihood the auditor will issue a going-concern report. Chen and Church (1992, 31)argue that difficulty in complying with debt agreements, evidenced by missed payments or covenant violations, clarify the company’s going-concern problems. Since the auditor is more likely to be blamed for failing to issue a going-concern report after events suggesting that such an opinion may have been appropriate, the cost of failing to issue a going concern report when a company is in default is particularly high. We therefore expect default to increase the likelihood the auditor will issue a going-concern report. We use a dummy variable to measure whether the entity is in default before the issuance of the audit report (1 = debt default, 0 = other)