An Empirical Research on Factors Related to Audit Fees: Evidence from Listed Companies in China

This paper makes an empirical study on the factors that affect the audit fees in wholesale and retail trade. The findings pointed to a positive association between the size of the assets, the per capita gross domestic product (GDP), the asset -liability ratio of the audited entity, whether the auditing unit is Big4 and audit fees. The findings also revealed that the audit fee is negatively correlated with the return on assets (ROA) of the audited entity. As the price of audit services, audit fees are related to the independence of the audit staff, the reliability of the company's information, is an important factor affecting the auditing quality. The purpose of this research is to help the information users understand the composition of the audit fees and the situation of the audited units. It is conducive to the supervision and management departments to understand the causes of pricing and play a better supervisory role.