ABSTRACT Using a Supreme Court ruling that rejected the use of “bright-line” rules previously relied upon in evaluating materiality claims, this study examines how heightened materiality uncertainty impacts audit pricing. We expect the heightened uncertainty to make it more difficult for auditors and clients to assess materiality and to reach a consensus on materiality assessment, which increases audit effort and engagement risk, leading to higher audit fees. Consistent with this prediction, we find that after the ruling, audit fees increase significantly for treatment firms in the circuits using bright-line rules in the pre-ruling period, relative to control firms not affected by the ruling. This effect is stronger when auditors have lower quality or lower industry expertise, and when investors have more diverse opinions. We also find that for firms audited by low-expertise auditors, auditor turnover due to auditor-client disagreement on materiality-related issues increases significantly for treatment firms relative to control firms. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: K2; M41; M42.

中文翻译：

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实质性不确定性加剧的经济后果：审计的角度


摘要本研究利用最高法院的一项裁决，拒绝使用以前在评估重要性主张时所依赖的“明确”规则，研究了重要性不确定性的增加如何影响审计定价。我们预计，不确定性的增加将使审计师和客户更难以评估重要性并就重要性评估达成共识，从而增加审计工作量和参与风险，从而导致审计费用更高。与这一预测一致的是，我们发现，在裁决之后，相对于不受裁决影响的对照公司，在裁决前期间使用明线规则的处理公司的审计费用显着增加。当审计师的质量较低或行业专业知识较低，以及投资者的意见更加多样化时，这种效应会更强。我们还发现，对于由低专业审计师审计的公司来说，由于审计师与客户在重要性相关问题上存在分歧，处理公司的审计师流动率相对于对照公司显着增加。数据可用性：数据可从文中引用的公共来源获得。 JEL 分类：K2； M41； M42。