Non-Audit Services, Incentives and Audit Quality

Abstract

I develop a framework that provides new insights into the consequences of the provision of non-audit services (NAS) by audit firms to audit clients. The investors of a client firm may optimally let the auditor provide NAS because of an incentive effect. Indeed, the possibility of providing NAS contingent on detecting financial misstatements increases the auditor's incentives to exert audit effort. However, the provision of NAS also reduces auditor independence, which may decrease audit quality and in turn render the provision of NAS by auditors undesirable. Thus, my analysis uncovers an interesting tradeoff for regulators between the positive incentive effect and the decrease in auditor independence. Removing the current restriction on contingent audit fees may offset the ex post decrease in audit quality while preserving the ex ante incentives. My analysis also generates a number of testable empirical predictions.