Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2017.1311233
Audit fees and the salience of financial crisis: evidence from Slovenia
Maja Zaman Groff
orcid.org/0000-0002-3917-5436
Domen Trobec
Aleksander Igličar
Abstract
The financial crisis that has recently affected the EU economies
created a research setting that enabled the examination of the effect
of the financial crisis outbreak on audit fees by studying the deviation
of audit fees in the post-crisis period as compared to the pre-crisis
period. Financial crisis represents a setting that is tightly related to
the concepts of audit risk and liability, where higher audit fees can
be expected to account for increased audit engagement. The article
identifies the characteristics of audit fees in Slovenia, a country with
a relatively short auditing tradition. Since the establishment of the
first audit firms in Slovenia in 1992, the number has consistently
increased and reached 50 in 2007. This trend resulted in decreasing
concentration and increasing price competition in the audit market
for the large segment of non-listed companies. The aim of the article
is to investigate the effect of the financial crisis on audit fees in
Slovenia. Using the fixed effects panel model, our study provides
evidence that financial crisis negatively affected audit fees in Slovenia.
It seems that the negative effects on audit fees (reduced demand,
increased competition and cost reduction measures) outweigh the
opposing positive effect on audit fees resulting from increased audit
engagement.
Keywords
Audit fees; audit risk; Big 4; financial crisis; panel model; Slovenia
Hrčak ID:
182579
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2017.
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