Audit Committee Effectiveness:Relationship between Audit Committee Characteristics and Audit Fees and Non-Audit Service Fees

Audit committee responsibilities have increased significantly in recent years due to uncertainties arising from a changing statutory, regulatory, legal and risk environment for companies. Over the past two decades their role has evolved into an independent oversight responsibility for the audit processes and the financial reporting process. The results highlight that the audit committee size and the presence of independent directors on the audit committee board have a higher demand for oversight and thus a higher requirement for audit effort resulting in higher audit fees. The results indicate that higher audit fees entail increased audit testing and higher audit quality. Audit committee expertise is related to lower audit fees indicating that high-quality audit committees are in a position to effectively oversee the financial reporting process themselves and require less audit efforts from the external auditor.