The Effects of Internal Audit, Audit Committee and Firm Characteristics on Audit Fees in a Multi-Country and Industry Setting

Abstract

This paper examines the association between audit fees and attributes of internal audit (IA), audit committee (AC), as measured by independence and financial expertise, as well as characteristics of the firm. The determinants of audit fees have been extensively investigated in the prior literature, but the results are conflicting. We develop a comprehensive model from a multi-country and multi-industry perspective. A total of 3,136 companies covering a period of 10 years (2011-2020) with 15,247 observations from 55 countries were included in this study. We found that the most critical variables that have a significant positive effect on the audit fees are client size, leverage (risk), profitability, complexity, losses, AC independence, AC expertise and auditor size. The study also shows that audit pricing is significantly negatively related to foreign operations, auditor tenure, and internal audit independence. The results highlight variables that affect audit fees across a range of countries/industries.