This thesis examines the empirical relationship between a set of board characteristics (i.e. independence, diligence and expertise), audit committee (existence, characteristics and status within the board), and audit fees in a sample of Nasdaq OMX Stockholm-listed companies. The author investigates the relationship using a sample of 187 company-year observations for year 2011. Through multivariate regression analysis, the author found that more independent boards are associated with lower audit fees, while more expert boards and audit committee existence are associated with higher audit fees at the conventional levels. Results as such suggest that board independence, expertise and audit committee existence can influence the demand for audit coverage. Through further analyzing a subsample of 116 companies with audit committees, the author additionally found that more audit committee meetings are associated with higher audit fees, while wholly independent audit committees and an increase in the relative size of audit committee to nomination committee are associated with lower audit fees at the conventional levels. These findings are supportive for the Swedish regulatory requirement of adopting audit committees in the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm-listed companies effective from 2009 and have implications for enhancing board- and audit committee effectiveness in the Swedish listed companies.

The dissertation consists of three studies examining three different regulatory issues that affect the auditing profession. The first study has two main foci. First, the study investigates the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on the Big 4 fee premium. Second, the study investigates the relationship between the size of an audit client and annual fee change. The results show that in the post-SOX environment, clients of non-Big 4 firms have experienced greater increases in audit fees than the clients of the Big 4 firms, resulting in a diminishing Big 4 premium. This is consistent with the notion that non-Big 4 clients had to make significant adjustments to meet post-SOX quality requirements by increasing their effort (and consequently audit fees). The results also show audit firms’ large clients experience the largest percentage increase in audit fees. This is consistent with the theoretical view of consumer surplus, where the large clients, with more resources, have greater levels of consumer surplus, which is being captured by the audit firms. The study contributes to our understanding of the impact of SOX on audit fee premium and the economics of audit market competition in different client segments. The second study is focused on three main areas: 1) the relationship between audit fees and audit market concentration on a country level; 2) the effect of a country’s litigation regime on the relationship between audit fees and market concentration and 3) the inter-relations between competition, fees, and quality in the market for audit services. The study is motivated by the current debate in the United States and the European Union about the possible problems associated with the current oligopolistic structure of the audit market. The contribution of this study lies in the fact that it provides a multi-national empirical investigation of the audit competition-fee relationship, and examination of how country-level fees affect the competitionquality relationship, while controlling for country level factors. Results show a negative iv relationship between country-level market concentration and audit fees but only in highly litigious countries, suggesting that the firms are able to obtain economies of scale in more concentrated markets and are willing to pass savings down to their clients. However this relationship only holds for the clients of the Big N firms. Analysis of audit quality suggests that audit quality is higher in more concentrated markets but mediation analysis did not show that the fees mediate the relationship between audit quality and market concentration. The third study addresses current regulatory debate about the responsibility of the principal auditor in the group audit environment. Current United States standards allow the principal auditor to disavow responsibility for parts of the audit which were performed by a third party auditor by referencing them in the auditor’s opinion and then indicating the part of the audit which was performed by them. This disclaimer of responsibility is prohibited under the international auditing standards, which require the principal auditor to be responsible for the entire group audit. Specifically, this study examines 1) audit quality implications related to such opinions, and 2) the relationship between having a shared opinion and audit fees. The results show that the audit quality is significantly lower for the firms whose audit opinion referenced a third party auditor. The results also provide some evidence that audit fees are lower in shared responsibility situations.

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This study provides evidence between auditors' fees and earnings management in New Zealand. The fee measures used in this study are audit fees, non-audit fees and total fees paid by a client to the audit firm. For each of the three fee measures, I derive client importance fee measures that reflect a client’s economic importance to the auditor relative to other clients of the auditor at the city office and national levels. This study employs both performance adjusted discretionary accruals and current accruals as proxies for earnings management. Using a sample of 224 firm-years comprising firms listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the results of multivariate tests indicate an adverse association between non-audit fees and earnings management. In other words, non-audit fees paid by a client relative to fees paid by other clients, at the office and national levels, appear to impair the auditor’s independence because clients generating relatively more non-audit fees report greater discretionary and current accruals. Such evidence is more pronounced for income increasing accrual proxies for earnings management. The results also show that audit fee is not related to earnings management. As the results in this study are consistent across both discretionary and current accruals, the validity of the results is strengthened. This study contributes to the literature by providing insight into how auditors’ fee metrics indicating client importance affect earnings management in a legal and institutional environment of a small economy, and where the audit market is largely saturated with little room for growth. This study raises implications for relevant regulatory bodies in New Zealand pertaining to future developments of auditor independence and financial reporting regulations.

This study investigates whether auditors respond to earnings management pressure created by analyst forecasts. Analyst forecasts create an important earnings target for management, and professional standards direct auditors to consider how this pressure could affect their clients. Using annual analyst forecasts available during the planning phase of the audit, I examine whether this form of earnings management pressure affects clients’ financial statement misstatements. Next, I investigate whether auditors respond to earnings forecast pressure through audit fees and reporting delay. I find that higher levels of analyst forecast pressure increase the likelihood of client restatement. I also find that auditors charge higher audit fees and delay the issuance of the audit report in response to pressure from analyst expectations. Finally, I find that when audit clients are subject to high analyst forecast pressure, a high audit fee response by auditors mitigates the likelihood of client misstatements.

This study provides evidence between auditors' fees and earnings management in New Zealand. The fee measures used in this study are audit fees, non-audit fees and total fees paid by a client to the audit firm. For each of the three fee measures, I derive client importance fee measures that reflect a client’s economic importance to the auditor relative to other clients of the auditor at the city office and national levels. This study employs both performance adjusted discretionary accruals and current accruals as proxies for earnings management. Using a sample of 224 firm-years comprising firms listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the results of multivariate tests indicate an adverse association between non-audit fees and earnings management. In other words, non-audit fees paid by a client relative to fees paid by other clients, at the office and national levels, appear to impair the auditor’s independence because clients generating relatively more non-audit fees report greater discretionary and current accruals. Such evidence is more pronounced for income increasing accrual proxies for earnings management. The results also show that audit fee is not related to earnings management. As the results in this study are consistent across both discretionary and current accruals, the validity of the results is strengthened. This study contributes to the literature by providing insight into how auditors’ fee metrics indicating client importance affect earnings management in a legal and institutional environment of a small economy, and where the audit market is largely saturated with little room for growth. This study raises implications for relevant regulatory bodies in New Zealand pertaining to future developments of auditor independence and financial reporting regulations.

Formed under the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) was charged with providing the interpretive guidance for auditors to use in carrying out their responsibilities under Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404. Auditing Standard No. 2 (AS2) provided the initial guidance to auditors beginning in 2004. Early research on audit delay and audit fees under these new requirements revealed significant increases in both. Although audit delay and audit fees decreased in subsequent years, they remained much higher than predicted. As a result of the concerns and complaints of the accounting profession and the public firms affected by AS2, the PCAOB rescinded AS2 and replaced it with Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS5) in 2007. The primary objective of the new guidance focuses the auditors’ attention on the most important matters in the audit of internal controls over financial reporting and eliminating procedures that the Board believes are unnecessary to an effective audit of internal control. Intended to streamline the audit process, the goal of the PCAOB was to reduce audit delay and audit fees. Research in the AS5 era has produced mixed results for both. In this study, I extend the early AS5 research to determine if AS5 has had a significant impact on reducing both audit delay and audit fees. Using multiple regression analysis, I examine audit delay and audit fees from 2007 through 2013 to determine their long-term trend. Data sources include Audit Analytics, Compustat, and CRSP. Based on the literature review, I expect to find a decrease to both audit delay and audit fees over the long-term.

Although corporate environmental accountability is receiving unprecedented attention in the United States from policy makers, the capital market, and the public at large, extant research is limited in its examination of the implications of strategic corporate environmental initiatives on accounting and auditing. The purpose of my dissertation is to address these implications by examining the association between firm environmental initiatives and audit fees, capital expenditures, and earnings quality using multivariate regression analysis. I find that firms engaged in more strategic environmental initiatives tend to have significantly higher audit fees and capital expenditures, and significantly lower levels of earnings manipulation measured using discretionary accruals. These results support the notion that auditors do recognize the importance of environmental initiatives when conducting the year-end financial statement audit, an idea that positively reflects upon the auditor’s monitoring role. The results also demonstrate the increased amount of capital resources required to participate in strategic environmental initiatives, an anecdotal notion that had yet to be empirically supported. This empirical support provides valuable insights on how environmental initiatives materially impact corporate financial statements. Finally, my results extend the extant literature by demonstrating that the superior financial performance reported by environmentally active firms is less likely driven by earnings manipulation by management, and by implication, more likely a result of real economic gains. Taken together, my dissertation establishes a strong and timely foundation for current and future research to explore corporate environmental initiatives in the United States and globally, a topic increasingly gaining momentum in today’s more eco-conscious world.

Yes / This paper reviews the literature on the independent oversight of auditing from 2003 to 2018 and provides several research opportunities for filling the identified gaps in that literature. Our review classifies the literature into three themes: (1) the development of independent audit oversight; (2) the effects of independent audit oversight; and (3) the interface between the independent audit oversight authorities and the global audit networks. The paper finds different effects of the independent audit oversight. Positively, it enhances the capital markets by adding more credibility to the published information. Auditors become more conservative about accepting or continuing to work with high-risk clients. At the same time, while audit fees have increased as a result of the additional requirements of independent audit regulation, non-audit fees from audit clients have decreased significantly. Negatively, independent oversight has increased audit concentration and resulted in insufficient choice of auditors in most audit markets.

This study examines whether auditor industry expertise in private clients influences audit quality of public client engagements in the United States. Private companies are significant to the U.S. economy as well as audit firms. I hand-collect auditors' private client information and construct a national, city, and joint national/city specialist designation and document a 17.9 to 47.3 (12.9 to 25.8) percent decrease in a public client's likelihood to misstate their financial statements (net income earnings management) when an auditor is a private client industry specialist. I then construct and test a city specialist measure using both private and public client data and find that it is economically stronger and more robust than the public only measure commonly employed by audit researchers. This study provides evidence of the importance of private companies to an audit firm's industry expertise as well as to researchers' use of city specialist measure in audit studies. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study examines whether auditor industry expertise in private clients influences audit quality of public client engagements in the United States. Private companies are significant to the U.S. economy as well as audit firms. I hand-collect auditors' private client information and construct a national, city, and joint national/city specialist designation and find that audit quality is higher for the audit firm's public clients in the same industry. Next, I construct and test a city industry specialist measure using both private and public client data and find that it is economically stronger and more robust than the public only measure commonly employed by audit researchers. This study provides evidence of the importance of private companies to an audit firm's industry expertise as well as to researchers' use of city specialist measure in audit studies.