Corporate executive’s gender and audit fees

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between a corporate executive’s gender and audit fees. Based on the findings of extant research that there are gender-based differences that may have implications for the financial reporting process, the authors posit an association between CEO gender and audit fees. Design/methodology/approach – The authors test their hypothesis by performing both univariate and multivariate regression analyses on a sample of 8,402 Compustat firm-year observations from US firms for 2003-2010. Findings – The authors’ findings indicate that firms with female CEOs are associated with higher audit fees. Their results hold after controlling for self-selection bias and factors shown by prior studies to be associated with audit fees. Research limitations/implications – Although the authors control for factors that would increase audit fees, their study is limited by the degree to which higher audit fees reflect higher quality audits. Also, because their sample is from large publicly traded nonfinancial firms, their results may not be applicable to other types of firms. The authors study has implications for policy setting because their findings provide some evidence of a significant association between a CEO characteristic (gender) and financial reporting quality. Their findings, thus, provide some support for the Securities and Exchange Commission requirement that CEOs should certify their firm’s financial statements. Originality/value – The authors study contributes to the audit fees and corporate governance literature by providing empirical evidence of an association between audit fees and CEO gender. To their knowledge, no study, to date, has investigated this association.