Purpose – This study seeks to examine whether there are differences between companies that purchase either recurring or non-recurring audit services and those that do not, and whether auditors discount their audit fees for either type of non-audit service. Design/methodology/approach – The...

We investigate the impact of three German audit market characteristics on audit and non-audit fees for the years 2005-2007. We find no relation between audit and non-audit fees, which suggests that audit and non-audit fee determination in Germany does not indicate any particular impairment of...

While firm-initiated compensation recovery (or clawback) provisions are gaining popularity and the recently enacted Dodd-Frank Act seeks to make the clawback of erroneously awarded compensation mandatory for all listed companies, little is known about their effectiveness. We find that the...

Recent studies have documented that auditor industry specialization is associated with higher audit fees for public firms in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. This paper uses a unique dataset that consists of all audit engagements for the year 2004 to examine this issue in Belgium. We document...

This study investigates the impact of the COB’s mandated public disclosure of audit fees on subsequent period audit pricing. Our theoretical model predicts that the public disclosure of fees will lead to greater precision and reduced dispersion (less variance) in subsequent period fees. Using...

We examine a sample of 300 publicly listed companies in three European countries (France, Germany and the UK) during the period 2003-2008 to investigate the relations between audit fees and several auditor and company attributes. These include quantitative and qualitative variables. The presence...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate whether fees discounting exists in Malaysia and whether such a practice impairs auditor independence. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs a panel least regression of 3,003 firm-year observations of firms listed on Bursa...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of industry specialization on the absorption and competitive pricing (or lack thereof) of audits of large Andersen clients (S&P 1500 companies) who switched to the remaining Big 4 international accounting firms in 2002 due to the...

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between audit quality and cost of equity capital. This research argues that the higher the levels of audit quality, the lower the rate of return required by the investor. The cost of equity capital is measured by the price-earnings...

Public firms throughout the world tend to be controlled by large shareholders who possess significant control rights in excess of their cash-flow rights (excess control). Extensive evidence suggests that concentrated ownership structures and excess control entail large agency costs. However,...