City-Level Employee Education, Workplace Environment, And Audit Fees

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Journal Of International Accounting Research

Publication Date

8-1-2025

Abstract

In this study, we find that higher city-level employee education is associated with lower audit fees. This finding is robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, alternative model specifications, and endogeneity concerns. We find that this negative relationship is stronger for client firms that treat their employees better. Furthermore, we document that auditors are less likely to issue a going-concern opinion for client firms whose employees reside in cities with higher levels of education. Overall, our results show that city-level employee education and its interaction with the workplace environment play an important role in influencing audit fees.

ISSN

1542-6297

Publisher

American Accounting Association

Disciplines

Business

Keywords

audit fees, audit pricing, employee education, workplace environment, employee treatment

Indexed in Scopus

no

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Bronze: This publication is openly available on the publisher’s website but without an open license

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