Question: A study investigated the relationship between audit delay, the length of time from a company’s fiscal year end to the date of the auditors report, and variables that describe the client and auditor. Some of the independent variables that were included in the study follows.

Industry: a dummy coded variable codes 1 if the firm was an industrial company or 0 if the firm was a bank, savings and loan or insurance group.

Public: a dummy variable codes 1 if the company was trades on an organized exchange or over the counter, otherwise codes 0.

Quality: A measure of overall quality of internal controls, as judged by the auditor, on a five point scale ranging from “virtually one” 1 to excellent 5.

Finished: A measure ranging from 1-4 as judged by the auditor, where 1 indicates
“all work performed subsequent year end” and 4 indicates “most work performed prior to year end.”

A sample of 40 companies provided the following data.