Managerial Ownership, Corporate Monitoring and Audit Fee

Abstract

We study whether managerial ownership and analyst coverage relate to audit fee. To the extent that these corporate governance factors relate to auditor assessment of the firm’s agency costs and hence various risks the auditor must consider in the development of an audit program, they will affect audit effort and hence audit fee. We find that managerial equity holdings and analyst coverage are negatively associated with audit fee and that these associations are both statistically and economically significant. On average, one percent increase in managerial ownership translates into 0.2% reduction in audit fees. In the low managerial ownership sample (i.e., less than 5% managerial ownership), one percent increase in the ownership reduces the fees by 1.4%. Similarly, one more analysts following reduces audit fees by 9.3%. These results add to the literature on the effects of corporate governance on audit fees.

Keywords: audit fees, audit pricing, corporate governance

JEL Classification: M42, G34