In the U.S., the auditor’s report discloses only the name of the audit firm issuing the report but never any information about the identity of the partner(s) who led the work.The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is proposing that audit firms should be required to file a new form to make the identity of the audit engagement partner public in the audit report.

The crucial economic question is whether disclosing the identify of the lead audit partner improves the transparency of public company audits and whether such information aids investors and creditors in their decision-making process?

As this information becomes publicly available over multiple years, investors get to observe, and assess, whether a particular lead audit partner is more likely to be associated with: (1) fewer financial reporting misstatements, (2) higher audit quality, (3) higher audit fees, which is presumably because of rendering high audit quality,  (4) lower earnings management, and (5) higher frequency of modified going concern reports when a client is in financial trouble. Thus, using data from the past to draw inferences about the type of audit quality rendered by a particular audit engagement partner is likely to increase the reliability of financial statements to its users, but this benefit is likely to accrue over time.

It is also possible that disclosing the identity of the lead partner would alter the behavior of the audit partner relative to the current regime where such disclosure is not mandated (a classic disclosure problem extensively analyzed in economics, finance and accounting), which could lead to immediate improvements in audit quality. Users can also infer whether the engagement partner had any prior relationship with the client which has implications for auditor independence and therefore might impact audit quality. These are some of the benefits, there are other benefits as well.

However, it is important to highlight that there might be some costs. Audit fees are likely to increase as audit firms might begin to charge more  because of higher litigation costs. Firms might also charge more if they exert more effort. However, the net benefit is likely to be overwhelmingly larger (especially over a longer period).

http://www.accountingweb.com/aa/auditing/pcaob-proposes-new-form-for-identifying-audit-engagement-partner

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