Baker, PamelaMaurer, RobertLi, ZhenZou, LinTengesdal, Mark2024-02-142024-02-142023This is the published version of an article that is available at https://www.aejournal.com/ojs/index.php/aej/article/view/858. Recommended citation: Baker, P. S., Maurer, R., Li, Z., Zhou, L., Tengesdal, M. (2023). Causal effect of business accreditation on the CPA exam success rate. The Accounting Educators’ Journal, 33, 189–217. This item has been deposited in accordance with publisher copyright and licensing terms and with the author’s permission.https://hdl.handle.net/11274/15764https://www.aejournal.com/ojs/index.php/aej/article/view/858We examine the relationship between AACSB post-secondary business program accreditation and program success rate on the CPA Exam. We use panel data and a difference-in-differences quasi-experimental design to identify the causal effect of AACSB accreditation on the CPA exam success rate. In programs with intermediate to large numbers of exam candidates, we find no evidence that accreditation per se is causally related to the pass rate although a positive correlation between them is supported. In programs with small numbers of exam candidates, our results show the existence of causal effect of accreditation on the pass rate.en-USBusiness accreditationCPA examDifference-in-differencesCausal inferenceArticleThe copyright for articles in this journal are retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use with proper attribution in educational and other non-commercial settings.