Foreign Ownership and Audit Fees in European Listed Firms

This paper investigates whether foreign ownership affects audit fees by analyzing shareholdings of listed firms from Western European countries. The results show that foreign ownership is an important factor that drives the demand for audit services. However, the willingness to pay higher audit fees is mainly driven by the quality of governance and investor protection of the foreign investor's home country. This is consistent with the notion that foreign investors encourage the firms that they invest in to implement the same corporate governance practices in terms of auditing that they themselves are subject to in their home country. Finally, we document that the influence of the foreign investor on audit fees is increasing in the percentage of ownership held.