The existing literature about determinants of audit fee finds that those characteristics of a firm that conveys the “high quality” signal to the market can obtain higher audit fees. These studies ignore the differences among auditors, which are contradicted with individual auditor behavioral literature that showing different characteristics of auditors influence audit quality. Therefore, this paper hypothesizes that different auditors obtain different audit fees. Using the data of listed companies in China from 2010 to 2015, this paper constructs the regression model of the audit fees at individual auditor level and finds that age, gender, educational background, industry specialization, position and busyness all have significantly correlations with the audit fees. The results illustrate that audit client considers at individual auditor level when choosing audit services and pays different level of audit fees, which provide empirical evidences to selection and cultivation of auditors.
KeywordsAudit FeeAudit QualityIndividual Characteristics of Auditor
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