ABSTRACT

With a difference-in-differences approach, we find that world-wide reforms result in higher audit fees for reform firms. And this is specially so for reforms involving components of director independence and/or audit committee and auditor independence, adopting the rule-based approach, and implemented in countries with weaker institutional quality. Further analysis reveals that the increase in audit fees is driven by the increase in auditors’ efforts and auditees’ litigation risk, while the improved financial reporting quality has a negative effect on audit fees. Overall, our study examines one compliance cost, as well as its variations, of the board reforms.

摘要

通过差异中的差异方法，我们发现世界范围内的改革导致改革公司的审计费用更高。对于涉及董事独立性和/或审计委员会和审计师独立性的改革，采用基于规则的方法，并在制度质量较弱的国家实施的改革尤其如此。进一步分析表明，审计费用的增加是由审计人员的努力增加和被审计单位的诉讼风险推动的，而财务报告质量的提高对审计费用有负面影响。总体而言，我们的研究考察了董事会改革的一项合规成本及其变化。