Impact of economic policy uncertainty on audit fees: Evidence from Chinese listed companies

This literature review evaluates empirical studies which concentrate on economic effects on joint audits from an international perspective. We briefly introduce the theoretical and empirical joint audit framework that comprises an adequate structure of the state-of-the-art of empirical research in this field. This is followed by a discussion of the following output factors of joint audits: (1) audit quality; (2) audit costs and (3) audit market concentration. We will summarize the key findings in each area, and provide a description of the analyzed proxies. Finally, we will discuss the current limitations of the studies and give useful recommendations for future empirical research activities in this topic.

There is an academic discussion about investment efficiency, regarding its determinants and effects. Corporate Governance (CG) and Audit Quality (AQ) are determinants of investment efficiency The main objective of the article is to investigate the effect of CG and AQ on investment efficiency, this objective is divided into sub-objectives: to investigate the direct effect of CG on AQ, AQ on investment efficiency, and CG on investment efficiency. Moreover, the indirect effect of CG on investment efficiency through AQ as a mediator variable. This paper focuses on non-financial listed firms in the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX), especially firms recorded in EGX 100 for four years’ period (2013–2018), for 103 firms and 412 completed observations. The researcher uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through SmartPLS software. The paper shows evidence that management that has good CG mechanisms obtains a suitable atmosphere to prepare transparent financial statements, which helps enhance the auditor’s role and improve AQ. Improving AQ lowering IA, which increases the trust of investors in management decisions, this leads to reduce pressure on management and improve efficiency of investment decisions. Having good CG mechanisms provides management with a good atmosphere to make right investment decisions, and having good CG mechanisms increases AQ, which helps management to have a good environment to make investment decisions with higher efficiency, or in other words, there is a significant and positive effect of integration between CG and AQ on investment efficiency.

This study aims to compare the impact of the ownership structure as one of the essential internal mechanisms of governance on the proxies of external audit quality on a sample of 82 listed Egyptian companies and 77 listed Saudi companies from 2014 to 2021, employing the OLS regression analysis. The current study found mixed results according to the type of ownership and indicators of the external audit quality, both in Egyptian and Saudi companies. The results showed a significant effect of board ownership, management ownership, and family ownership on audit quality. However, the direction of this effect varied between positive or negative in Egyptian or Saudi companies, and the effect was sometimes insignificant. On the contrary, the results showed an insignificant effect of government ownership on audit quality in Egyptian and Saudi companies, or the effect was sometimes significant. The study results may help investors and stakeholders understand the ownership structure’s role as one of the internal governance mechanisms on audit quality. Studies show the effectiveness of governance mechanisms, whether internal or external, according to the institutional environment from one country to another. It also contributes to the use of various indicators to measure the quality of auditing and the quality of financial reports, such as returning the financial statements as an indicator of financial reports and an indicator of audit quality at the same time.