Engagement Partner’s Expertise and Audit Fees: An Archival Study

• In Event: Audit Partner Expertise and Experience

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the impact of individual audit partners on audit fees. Using a sample of listed companies in France, we estimate a set of audit partner fixed effects. We find that these fixed effects have significant explanatory power for audit fees, confirming our base hypothesis that companies differentially reward individual audit partners. Furthermore, we find that the partners premium increase with the level of the partner industry specialization or professional experience. Overall, these findings show that the companies recognize the differential skills or abilities of individual audit partners and are willing to pay more for these partners.

Authors

• Jean Bedard, Université Laval

• Jerome Deschenes, Laval University

• Mathijs Van Peteghem, Universiteit Maastricht