감사인의 인적특성은 감사보수에 반영되는가?：중국기업을 이용한 조사

[Purpose] Recent worldwide changes in audit regulations require higher responsibility of individual auditors. For instance, PCAOB enacted the regulation that requires the disclosure of audit partner names for public firms in U.S. Similarly, in Korea, public firms are also subject to disclosure of individual audit partner names in the annual report as of the end of 2018. The underlying assumption of these regulations is that the audit quality is systematically related to the auditor’s personal characteristics. Reflecting these trends in accounting and auditing practice, this paper investigates whether there are systematic differences in the audit fees according to the individual characteristics of the auditors. [Methodology] To conduct the tests, we use firms listed in Chinese stock market where auditors are required to identify themselves in audit report and investors can view these personal information. [Findings] The results of this study using 1,862 Chinese listed firms are as follows. First, the gender of the auditor is not significantly related to the audit fees. However, auditor’s academic degree, accounting and finance related major, and years of career experience are all significant and positively related to audit fees. In economic importance, each characteristics lead to 2.3% to 8.5% additional charges of audit fees. The results are robust when we use the propensity score－matched samples to alleviate endogeneity factor. [Policy Implications] The results of this study provide insight on how auditors’ personal characteristics affect audit fees by leveraging evidences of Chinese firms. Furthermore, our evidences support for the recent changes in accounting policy to proceed with a tendency to strengthen individual auditors’ responsibility of audit outcomes.