The Impact of Conservatism Accounting on Audit Fees

Abstract

For a sample of listed Portuguese and Spanish firms from 2010 to 2018, this study draws on audit pricing, substitution, signaling, and complementary theories to evaluate the impact of conservatism accounting on audit fees. Using fixed effects technique, the author finds a positive relationship between conservatism accounting and audit fees. The results suggest that firms with more conservative accounting (with strong internal corporate governance) could be more likely to demand high-quality audit to strengthen investor confidence in financial information and, thus pay higher audit fees. Therefore, this study supports signaling and complementary theories. The results also suggest that Big 4, growth, firm size, and leverage are positively related with audit fees. To Spain, audit risk and ROA are also positively related with audit fees.