Do the Big 4 and the Second-tier firms provide audits of similar quality?

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Audit Quality and Corporate Governance: Evidence from the Microfinance Industry (2012, neutral): “Audit fees (Knechel et al., 2008; Lin and Hwang, 2010), auditor size (Francis and Krishnan, 1999; Boone et al., 2010), and auditor reputation (Broye and Weill, 2008; Hope at al., 2008) are the most commonly listed indicators of audit quality.”
Auditor Style and Financial Statement Comparability (2014, neutral): “…provide higher quality audits than smaller non-Big 4 firms (Francis et al. 1999), and in the post-SOX period some studies report that audit quality differences have narrowed between the Big 4 firms and mid-tier firms (Boone, Khurana, and Raman 2010; Cassell, Giroux, Meyers, and Omer 2013).”
Geographic Proximity between Auditor and Client: How Does it Impact Audit Quality? (2012, neutral): “Prior studies by Hogan and Martin (2009) and Boone et al. (2010) suggest that second-tier auditors behave differently from top-tier auditors and other small auditors.”
Compliance with IFRS 3- and IAS 36-required disclosures across 17 European countries: company- and country-level determinants (2013, background): “Given their size, the Big 4 can invest more in training and in audit systems, are less dependent on individual clients and have stronger incentives to protect their reputation (e.g. Francis and Wang 2008, Boone et al. 2010).”