Browsing by Author "Tijani, Oladipupo Muhrtala"

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    Board Membership, Political Connection and Audit Pricing: A meta-Analysis from Nigeria
    (College of Management Sciences, AL-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Nigeria, 2015-06-29) Tijani, Oladipupo Muhrtala; Abdulraheem Olayiwola Kadir
    This paper investigates how personal ties of politically connected boards affect auditors' assessments of audit risk as reflected in audit fees in Nigeria. The study sought information on board of directors from companies' portable document format (PDF) annual reports and accounts, Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (NSE) and Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) filings from a comprehensive data set of 1893 firm–year observations obtained from 116 companies across 24 sectors between 2001 and 2009. Our finding suggests that auditors charge higher fees to politically connected firms compared to others. We also find that this incremental effect of a firm's board political connections on audit fees is stronger among firms with weaker corporate governance, and more complicated operating structures. This finding is an indication that auditors perceive politically connected firms as riskier. Accordingly, they exercise greater effort and charge higher fees to these firms. Our evidence is sturdy to a battery of econometric endogeneity remedies and to exogenous events such as presidential and mid-term elections and the intense financial crisis of 2008–2009. Our findings is robust in the presence of political influence, including campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures affecting auditors' perceived business risk in politically connected boards and the implications for audit pricing.