Fee pressure and audit quality
June 6, 2014 Leave a comment
Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 247–263
Fee pressure and audit quality q
Michael Ettredgea,⇑, Elizabeth Emeigh Fuerherma, Chan Li b
abstract
This study investigates the association of audit fee pressure with an inverse measure of
audit quality, misstatements in audited data, during the recent recession. Fee pressure in
a year is measured as the difference between benchmark ‘‘normal’’ audit fees and actual
audit fees. We find fee pressure is positively and significantly associated with accounting
misstatements in 2008, the center of the recession. Our results suggest that auditors made
fee concessions to some clients in 2008, and that fee pressure was associated with reduced
audit quality in that year
