Abnormal audit fees and financial reporting quality: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Increasing levels of information disclosure and firm transparency are drawing researchers’ attention to abnormal audit fees (AAFs), and a growing body of literature is focused on the association between AAFs and financial reporting quality (FRQ). These studies use various FRQ constructs and theoretical lenses, and find contradictory results. Thus, it remains unclear whether AAFs are positively or negatively associated with FRQ. This meta-analysis of the literature assesses (a) the association between AAFs and FRQ; (b) the extent to which the FRQ proxies used in the literature are homogeneous; and (c) the different theoretical frameworks that are used to interpret the association between AAFs and FRQ. The results show that higher AAFs are associated with reduced FRQ, and this finding is robust to different FRQ constructs and theoretical frameworks.