Female lead auditors, audit fees, and audit quality

Abstract

We investigate whether female lead auditors are associated with higher audit fees and audit quality. We expect female lead auditors to have a significant influence on these audit outcomes for two reasons. First, female auditors are more risk averse and less tolerant of opportunistic behaviours than their male counterparts. Second, lead auditors perform more numerous and varied tasks and spend more time on the audit of a given client than concurring auditors. Our results show that female lead auditors are associated with higher audit quality but not with higher audit fees. However, these results only hold for female lead auditors with low client-specific experience (i.e., in a riskier context). Finally, additional analyses suggest that female lead auditors and female concurring auditors have a different influence on audit fees and audit quality.