The Earnings Quality Information Content of Dividend Policies and Audit Pricing
研究发现支付股利的公司审计费用更低，且股利增强了盈余持续性与审计费用的负相关，减弱了盈余操纵风险与审计费用的正相关，表明审计师在定价中考虑了股利政策的盈余质量信息。
Abstract Recent studies indicate dividends are associated with higher‐quality earnings. Our study extends the literature by examining whether dividends' information is associated with auditors' assessment of their clients' earnings quality. Our results show that auditors charge lower fees to dividend‐paying clients than to nondividend‐paying clients and the average fee discount ranges from 6.0 to 10.6 percent. More importantly, we find dividends have an interactive effect with respect to earnings persistence and earnings manipulation: the negative association between audit fees and earnings persistence is more pronounced for dividend firms; and dividend payouts mitigate the positive relation between earnings manipulation risk and audit fees. Our results imply dividends reduce audit risk by enhancing clients' earnings quality information. We contribute to the literature by showing that auditors reflect the earnings quality information content of firms' dividend policies in their pricing decisions.