Hidden Related Parties and Audit Fees——A research based on industrial and commercial big data of supply chain
In recent years,there has been an increasingly obvious trend for listed companies to hide their supply chain business relationships to avoid information disclosure requirements,which is not conducive to investors'evaluation and judgement of the nature and profitability of transactions of listed companies.From the perspective of auditors,this paper takes China's A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2021 as the research sample,measures hidden related parties based on the industrial and commercial big data of supply chain,analyzes the correlation between hidden related parties and audit fees.We find that the hidden relations between listed companies and key transaction partners increase audit fees.The results of a series of robustness tests remain consistent.In the channel test,we find that hidden related parties affects the audit fees by influencing audit input.In the group test,we find that the impact of hidden relations on audit fees is more significant to the companies in highly markets-based areas with low information transparency,and when the listed companies are key clients of the audit firm.This study provides empirical data on how auditors judge the hidden related parties.
hidden related partyaudit feesinformation disclosureaudit inputrisk compensation
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
