The effect of family control on audit fees during financial crisis

Purpose The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the effect of family involvement in ownership, management and directorship on audit fees during the crisis and non-crisis periods. Design/methodology/approach Following Anderson and Reeb (2003), this paper uses a two-way fixed effect model to examine the impact of family control on audit fees in crisis and non-crisis periods. The fixed effects include dummy variables for each year and each industry code in the sample. Findings This paper finds that during normal economic periods, family firms pay lower audit fees relative to non-family firms because of the incentive alignment or monitoring effect. While, during crisis periods, family firms pay higher audit fees because of the shareholder expropriation effect. Research limitations/implications - The results reported in this paper have both practical and policy implications for the demand and supply of audit services to firms having different ownership structures. Originality/value This is the first study of its kind to examine the effect of family ownership and involvement on audit fees during the crisis period.