REIT Auditor Fees and Financial Market Transparency
研究了房地产投资信托（REIT）在审计服务上的过度投资和异常非审计费用与市场透明度指标的关系，发现市场奖励过度投资审计的REIT（流动性更好），但惩罚异常高非审计费用的REIT（价差更大）。
This article examines the relationship between overinvestment in audit services, abnormal nonaudit fees paid to the auditor and market‐based measures of firm transparency. Because real estate investment trusts (REITs) must distribute 90% of their earnings as dividends, many are repeat participants in the seasoned equity market. Thus, REITs have unusually strong incentives to strive for security market transparency. We find that the capital markets reward REITs that overinvest in audit services with better liquidity as measured by bid‐ask spreads. However, firms with abnormally high nonaudit expenditures appear to be penalized with wider spreads, consistent with the notion that such fees may compromise auditor independence.