Abstract This article focuses on the general modeling environment of the assurance service model. In fact, the general structure is a minor extension of a single-person information economics model found in the extant literature. This setting makes one wonder about the role of the assurer in this model. The question arises as to why an auditor would be hired; it probably is an expertise rationale, but it would appear that many different types of individuals, e.g., an internal management accountant or even the decision maker himself, could satisfy this role. Additionally, there does not appear to be a role for independence as an attribute of the assurer. Basically, high-quality assurance service in this model equates to a high-quality information signal. While this setting may be appropriate for the specific assurance service contemplated in the model, it does not appear to be necessarily representative of a broader set of assurance services. It seems to lack some of the uniqueness of an assurer environment relative to a general decision maker context.
Jeffrey W. Schatzberg (Wed,) studied this question.