Research on the Relationship between Corporate Philanthropy and Audit Fee

摘要

As a response to the increased corporate philanthropy and the consequent corporate philanthropy discourse among researchers, practitioners and policymakers, we study the consequence of corporate philanthropy in an alternative way by the view of auditors. We seek to understand how auditors, the risk-sensitive group, would interpreter the corporate philanthropy behavior from the firms in industry with strong social concerns for harmful pollutants. Using a panel date from Chinese listed company in the chemical industry from 2009 to 2013, this paper finds that despite corporate philanthropy may involve more audit work, it tends to decrease the audit fee. Our paper fills a gap in extant research by building a link between corporate philanthropy and auditor's behavior and can be of interest to firms adopting a strategic corporate philanthropy policy and their stakeholders.