Audit committee director-auditor interlocking, audit pricing and industry specialisation
by Xiaolu Xu; Susan M. Albring
International Journal of Corporate Governance (IJCG), Vol. 9, No. 4, 2018

Abstract: This study examines the relation between audit committee director-auditor interlocking and audit fees, as well as the effect of auditor industry specialisation on this relation. Using a sample of S&P 1,500 firms in the USA during the years 2004-2014, we find a positive relation between audit committee director-auditor interlocking and audit fees only for firms that select industry specialist auditors. Firms that select non-industry specialist auditors pay lower audit fees compared to the control firms which do not have either interlocked audit committees or interlocked audit committees through director-auditor links. The findings are robust after controlling for sample selection bias and unobserved omitted variables and using alternative measures of audit committee director-auditor interlocking. Additional analyses show that firms with audit committee director-auditor interlocking are more likely to select industry specialist auditors. These results indicate that audit committees with director-auditor interlocking demand high quality audits and extensive audit coverage due to reputation effects only when the selected auditors have higher reputational cost and more bargaining power.

Online publication date: Wed, 21-Nov-2018

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Corporate Governance (IJCG):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com