The Power of Reputation: Award‐winning CEOs and Audit Pricing
研究发现，CEO因获得全国性商业奖项而提升声誉后，其所在公司的外部审计费用显著降低，且这种效应在内部治理较弱、CEO薪酬较高或分析师关注度较高的公司中更为明显。
This study investigates how CEO reputation influences firms’ audit fees. Using prestigious business awards to measure positive shocks to CEO reputation, empirical evidence reveals that firms with nationally recognized CEOs exhibit significant reductions in external auditing fees compared to peer firms. The results hold for various robustness checks. Moreover, we find more pronounced negative relations between CEO reputation and audit fees for firms with weaker internal governance, CEOs who win more prestigious awards, firms with highly paid CEOs, and firms with greater analyst followings. Finally, we find that CEO reputation affects client risk proxied by return volatility, accounting quality, and internal control weakness, which in turn influences audit fees. Collectively, our results show that CEO reputation affects audit risk and pricing.