소유지배괴리도와 감사보수 간의 관련성에 대한감사위원회 특성의 승수효과

The higher risk of distortions in financial statements, the greater agency problems between managers and external shareholders. Prior research provides consistent evidence on the relationship between ownership-control disparity and either corporate values or the reliability of accounting information, but overlooks those with the indicator of audit risk, audit fees or audit committee characteristics. The study aims to examine the relationship between ownership-control disparity and audit fees and then verifies whether audit committee characteristics have multiplier effects on this relationship. This study covers the 2010-2016 periods and the final sample is the firm-year 836 observations whose ownership-control disparity could be calculated. The findings show the positive relationship between ownership-control disparity and audit fees, with this relationship more strengthened by the individual as well as composite measures of audit committee characteristics. This results are interpreted that auditors assess the distortion risk of financial statements make audit risk higher, resulting in higher audit fees. The multiplier effects of audit committees are weaker for own-controlled companies, but greater for foreigner-controlled companies, suggesting that its multiplier effects depend on firms’ ownership structure. Moreover, the results analyzed based on Korean commercial laws for the establishment and composition of audit committees are similar to those for abroad standards and the multiplier effects of audit committees are more pronounced in conglomerates with holding companies. This study contributes to prior research by providing novel evidence that audit committee characteristics promote auditors to assess ownership-control disparity reasonably and alleviate agency problems between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders.