Governance Regulatory Changes, International Financial Reporting Standards Adoption, and New Zealand Audit and Non-Audit Fees: Empirical Evidence

Abstract:     
This study examines the association between overseas and New Zealand governance regulatory reforms and New Zealand companies’ audit and non-audit fees. Our models use temporal and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) indicator variables to relate the timing of the fee changes to the incidence of the overseas and local reforms. We find that audit fees increased in New Zealand over 2002–2006. Such increases associate reliably with the transition to and adoption of NZ IFRS and not with earlier overseas governance reforms. Our study also documents a decrease in non-audit fees over the same period, but we find no IFRS effect for non-audit fees.

Keywords: Audit fees, Auditor independence, Governance regulations, International Financial Reporting Standards, Non-audit fees, NZ IFRS, Sarbanes–Oxley Act

JEL Classification: C30, K22, L80, M40, M41, M44, M47

Accepted Paper Series