Determinants of Audit Fees : Evidence from UK Alternative Investment Market

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of audit fees in the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) using a sample of 23 machinery equipment companies covering the period from 2007 to 2011. The factors that have been hypothesised to be having a significant correlation with audit fees are auditee size, auditee complexity, audit risk, and auditor size. The results show that auditee size and auditee complexity are the main significant determinants of audit fees in the AIM. The findings also indicated a positive relationship between audit timing and audit fees. However, there was not significant evidence of a positive correlation between auditee risk and audit fees, which demonstrated that risk perceived by the auditor does not affect the value of fees. The results also indicated that there is no difference in the fees value between large or small clients. Moreover, the study demonstrated that there is no correlation between providing non-audit service and audit fees. Therefore, it is believed that the differences of these results with other studies in this field are due to the differences in the regulatory framework of the market selected as a sample for this study.