The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) presents a unique opportunity to study how auditors respond to an exogenous shock to the clients’ operating environment. Also, due to the GFC, auditors were under pressure from clients to cut audit fees during the crisis. Regulators were concerned that lower audit fees could result in lower audit effort, and more importantly, impair audit quality. We conduct a comprehensive analysis of multiple attributes of client firms’ earnings quality and audit quality. Collectively, our findings indicate that there is no significant difference in earnings quality between client firms that received a fee cut during the GFC and control firms consisting of firms that did not receive a fee cut and firms that received a fee cut before the GFC. Further, there is no significant difference in the likelihood of a going concern opinion or a financial restatement, our proxies for audit quality, between client firms that received a fee cut during the GFC and control firms. Our findings contribute to understanding the role of auditors during the GFC.

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全球金融危机期间削减审计费用与收入质量和审计质量之间的关系

全球金融危机（GFC）提供了一个独特的机会来研究审计师如何应对对客户运营环境的外在冲击。此外，由于存在全球金融危机，审计师在客户的压力下面临在危机期间削减审计费用的压力。监管机构担心，较低的审计费用可能会导致审计工作量减少，更重要的是，这会损害审计质量。我们对客户公司的收入质量和审计质量的多个属性进行全面分析。总的来说，我们的发现表明，在全球金融危机期间接受减费的客户公司与由未接受减费的公司组成的控制公司与在全球金融危机之前接受减费的公司组成的控制公司之间的收益质量没有显着差异。进一步，在全球金融危机期间收到减费的客户公司与控制公司之间，就持续经营的意见或财务重述，我们对审计质量的代理，可能性没有显着差异。我们的发现有助于理解审计师在全球金融危机期间的角色。