IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/advacc/v33y2016icp1-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Extreme CEO pay cuts and audit fees

Author

Listed:
  • Bryan, David B.
  • Mason, Terry W.

Abstract

This study investigates whether sudden and severe reductions in total CEO compensation affect auditor perceptions of risk. We argue that extreme CEO pay cuts can incentivize the CEO to manipulate the financial reports or make risky operational decisions in a desperate attempt to improve firm performance. This incentive, in turn, is likely to impact auditor assessments of audit risk and auditor business risk, leading to higher audit fees. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find evidence of a positive and highly significant association between extreme CEO pay cuts and audit fees. The results suggest that audit fees are 4.6% higher when there is an extreme CEO pay cut, which corresponds to an audit fee that is $111,458 higher for the average firm-year observation in our sample.

Suggested Citation

  • Bryan, David B. & Mason, Terry W., 2016. "Extreme CEO pay cuts and audit fees," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 1-10.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:advacc:v:33:y:2016:i:c:p:1-10
    DOI: 10.1016/j.adiac.2016.02.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0882611015300766
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.adiac.2016.02.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wysocki, Peter, 2010. "Corporate compensation policies and audit fees," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1-2), pages 155-160, February.
    2. Yongtae Kim & Haidan Li & Siqi Li, 2015. "CEO Equity Incentives and Audit Fees," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(2), pages 608-638, June.
    3. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    4. Ball, Ray & Jayaraman, Sudarshan & Shivakumar, Lakshmanan, 2012. "Audited financial reporting and voluntary disclosure as complements: A test of the Confirmation Hypothesis," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 136-166.
    5. Neil Fargher & Alicia Jiang & Yangxin Yu & Gary Monroe, 2014. "How do auditors perceive CEO's risk-taking incentives?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 54(4), pages 1157-1181, December.
    6. John D. Lyon & Michael W. Maher, 2005. "The Importance of Business Risk in Setting Audit Fees: Evidence from Cases of Client Misconduct," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 133-151, March.
    7. Roychowdhury, Sugata, 2006. "Earnings management through real activities manipulation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 335-370, December.
    8. Christopher S. Armstrong & Alan D. Jagolinzer & David F. Larcker, 2010. "Chief Executive Officer Equity Incentives and Accounting Irregularities," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 225-271, May.
    9. Timothy B. Bell & Wayne R. Landsman & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2001. "Auditors' Perceived Business Risk and Audit Fees: Analysis and Evidence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 35-43, June.
    10. Bergstresser, Daniel & Philippon, Thomas, 2006. "CEO incentives and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 511-529, June.
    11. Burns, Natasha & Kedia, Simi, 2006. "The impact of performance-based compensation on misreporting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 35-67, January.
    12. Shane A. Johnson & Harley E. Ryan & Yisong S. Tian, 2009. "Managerial Incentives and Corporate Fraud: The Sources of Incentives Matter," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 13(1), pages 115-145.
    13. Simunic, Da, 1980. "The Pricing Of Audit Services - Theory And Evidence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 161-190.
    14. Denis, David J. & Hanouna, Paul & Sarin, Atulya, 2006. "Is there a dark side to incentive compensation?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 467-488, June.
    15. Efendi, Jap & Srivastava, Anup & Swanson, Edward P., 2007. "Why do corporate managers misstate financial statements? The role of option compensation and other factors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 667-708, September.
    16. Seetharaman, Ananth & Gul, Ferdinand A. & Lynn, Stephen G., 2002. "Litigation risk and audit fees: evidence from UK firms cross-listed on US markets," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 91-115, February.
    17. Merle Erickson & Michelle Hanlon & Edward L. Maydew, 2006. "Is There a Link between Executive Equity Incentives and Accounting Fraud?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 113-143, March.
    18. Jared Harris & Philip Bromiley, 2007. "Incentives to Cheat: The Influence of Executive Compensation and Firm Performance on Financial Misrepresentation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(3), pages 350-367, June.
    19. Gao, Huasheng & Harford, Jarrad & Li, Kai, 2012. "CEO pay cuts and forced turnover: Their causes and consequences," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 291-310.
    20. Aloke Ghosh & Steven Lustgarten, 2006. "Pricing of Initial Audit Engagements by Large and Small Audit Firms," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(2), pages 333-368, June.
    21. Kenneth J. Reichelt & Dechun Wang, 2010. "National and Office‐Specific Measures of Auditor Industry Expertise and Effects on Audit Quality," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 647-686, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ya-Fang Wang, 2022. "Audit Fees, Patent Litigation, and Long-Term Performance," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH), Kavala Campus, Greece, vol. 15(1), pages 7-15, July.
    2. Lopo Martinez, Antonio & Moraes, Arquimedes de Jesus, 2017. "Relação entre a remuneração dos auditores e o gerenciamento de resultados contábeis," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 57(2), April.
    3. Ji, Xu-dong & Lu, Wei & Qu, Wen, 2018. "Internal control risk and audit fees: Evidence from China," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 266-287.
    4. Dafydd Mali & Hyoung‐joo Lim, 2021. "Do Relatively More Efficient Firms Demand Additional Audit Effort (Hours)?," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 31(2), pages 108-127, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhou, Fangzhao & Zhang, Zenan & Yang, Jun & Su, Yunpeng & An, Yunbi, 2018. "Delisting pressure, executive compensation, and corporate fraud: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 17-34.
    2. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    3. Li, Xingli & Pukthuanthong, Kuntara & Glenn Walker, Marcus & Walker, Thomas John, 2016. "The determinants of IPO-related shareholder litigation: The role of CEO equity incentives and corporate governance," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 81-126.
    4. Lars Helge Hass & Monika Tarsalewska & Feng Zhan, 2016. "Equity Incentives and Corporate Fraud in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 138(4), pages 723-742, November.
    5. Davidson, Robert H., 2022. "Who did it matters: Executive equity compensation and financial reporting fraud," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2).
    6. DeFond, Mark & Zhang, Jieying, 2014. "A review of archival auditing research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 275-326.
    7. Call, Andrew C. & Kedia, Simi & Rajgopal, Shivaram, 2016. "Rank and file employees and the discovery of misreporting: The role of stock options," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 277-300.
    8. Bryan, David B. & Mason, Terry W., 2017. "Executive tournament incentives and audit fees," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 30-45.
    9. Martin Nienhaus, 2022. "Executive equity incentives and opportunistic manager behavior: new evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 1276-1318, December.
    10. Dan Amiram & Zahn Bozanic & James D. Cox & Quentin Dupont & Jonathan M. Karpoff & Richard Sloan, 2018. "Financial reporting fraud and other forms of misconduct: a multidisciplinary review of the literature," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 732-783, June.
    11. Clive Lennox & Petro Lisowsky & Jeffrey Pittman, 2013. "Tax Aggressiveness and Accounting Fraud," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 739-778, September.
    12. Xin Qu & Daifei Yao & Majella Percy, 2020. "How the Design of CEO Equity-Based Compensation can Lead to Lower Audit Fees: Evidence from Australia," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 281-308, May.
    13. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    14. Haß, Lars Helge & Müller, Maximilian A. & Vergauwe, Skrålan, 2015. "Tournament incentives and corporate fraud," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 251-267.
    15. Abdul Ghafoor & Rozaimah Zainudin & Nurul Shahnaz Mahdzan, 2019. "Factors Eliciting Corporate Fraud in Emerging Markets: Case of Firms Subject to Enforcement Actions in Malaysia," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 587-608, December.
    16. Yiqing Tan, 2021. "Industry tournament incentives and audit fees," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3-4), pages 587-612, March.
    17. Joseph McManus, 2018. "Hubris and Unethical Decision Making: The Tragedy of the Uncommon," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 169-185, April.
    18. Florian Eugster & Alexander F. Wagner, 2021. "Earning investor trust: The role of past earnings management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1-2), pages 269-307, January.
    19. Erik Devos & William B. Elliott & Richard S. Warr, 2018. "The Propensity to Split and CEO Compensation," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 105-129, March.
    20. Justin J. Hopkins & Edward L. Maydew & Mohan Venkatachalam, 2015. "Corporate General Counsel and Financial Reporting Quality," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 129-145, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:advacc:v:33:y:2016:i:c:p:1-10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/advances-in-accounting/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.