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The regulation of auditing for privately held firms varies across the world. While countries suchas the United States and Canada impose no general audit requirement for private firms, manyEuropean Union (EU) Member States mandate audits even for small entities. The EU Accounting Directive (2013/34/EU) sets minimum thresholds for audit exemptions but allows MemberStates to adopt stricter national rules, creating variation across the EU. This paper reviews theoretical and empirical literature on the regulation of private-firm auditing. It explores justifications for audit mandates for small private firms, including externalities, behavioral considerations related to tax compliance and financial misconduct, and costs and benefits of voluntaryauditing. In addition, the study reviews legal frameworks for statutory audits in selected EUcountries and highlights how national policies and risk assessments shape audit thresholdsand enforcement strategies. The review concludes by identifying gaps in the literature and suggesting areas for future research.

Board members with multiple directorships develop reputational capital as decision experts. Prior studies based on public firms suggest that such directors would use higher quality auditors to improve the quality of financial reporting and, thereby, protect their reputational capital. This study is the first large-scale study that investigates whether multiple directorships influence auditor choice in the setting of private firms. The result indicates a significant positive association between the proportion of board members with outside directorships and audit quality. Furthermore, it shows that the propensity to hire a higher quality auditor is significantly influenced by directors’ network. Finally, the results indicate that the incentives to invest in higher quality auditors are largely influenced by the size of the companies in which board members have their outside directorships.

Det hävdas att obligatorisk revision av företag förhindrar brott. I ett forskningsprojekt finansierat av Vetenskapsrådet har ovannämnda författare undersökt om revision av företag minskar antalet brott. Vi har undersökt ett större antal svenska s.k. mikroföretag, som försatts i konkurs. Våra resultat visar att revision inte minskar antalet brott. Revision kan dock ha andra fördelar. Revisorn kan t.ex. uppmärksamma företaget på risker med för hög skuldsättning eller annat risktagande som kan resultera i att företaget kommer på obestånd. Frågan är om ett företag som saknar

Timeliness is an essential factor for the relevance of financial reporting information. However, the role of corporate governance in influencing financial reporting is largely unknown. This study is the first to investigate whether board composition influences the timeliness of financial reporting in private firms. Using a sample of 8,095 Swedish companies, I find that more independent, gender diverse, and larger boards tend to file their accounts in a timely fashion. These findings suggest that board composition considerably influences reporting behavior in private companies.

I såväl den politiska som juridiska debatten förekommer påståenden om revisorns betydelse för att stävja ekonomisk brottslighet och skatteundandragande. Dessa påståenden har genom åren kommit att bli självklara och ett återkommande mantra utan närmare förklaring. Vilken betydelse har egentligen revisorn för att få mindre aktiebolag som idag inte måste ha revisor att betala skatt?

This article provides evidence of the relations between disclosures in the management report of conditions that could challenge the continuance of operations, auditors’ going concern reporting, and the likelihood of bankruptcy for privately held firms in an environment characterized by low litigation risk. We conduct a matched case-control study using data for 125 firms filing for liquidation bankruptcy and 125 non-bankrupt firms. The results show that disclosures in the management report and auditors’ going concern modifications are positively associated with the likelihood of bankruptcy and that their predictive ability is incremental to the control factors. Despite the lower litigation pressure facing private Swedish firms, the informational value of going concern disclosures is comparable with those in litigious environments. 

We study how entrepreneurs’ attitudes toward risk, as measured by their personal legal infractions, are related to information asymmetry and agency problems prior to bankruptcy, using a sample of 260 small Swedish firms. We find that auditor resignations are more likely in firms where entrepreneurs have legal infractions. Furthermore, we find that legal infractions are negatively related to the likelihood of a firm disclosing its annual report and the quality of the bookkeeping, suggesting that information asymmetry problems are more severe when the entrepreneurs have legal infractions. We also find that creditors’ recovery rates in bankruptcy are lower if the entrepreneurs have legal infractions related to serious traffic offences, such as driving under the influence of alcohol or without a license.

This study examines whether partner special competencies, such as industry expertise, public company expertise and client-specific expertise, are associated with a fee premium. It further investigates whether the association between partner competencies and audit fees is dependent on gender. Using a sample of 225 public Swedish companies audited from 2006-2015 (1461 firm-years) by 182 (33 females and 149 males) partners affiliated to Big 4 audit firms, partner industry expertise and client-specific expertise are found to be associated with higher audit fees. A further finding is that partners with special competencies are predominantly men. However, male public company specialists receive significantly lower audit fees than their female counterparts. Taken together, the results indicate that partner special competence is valued by clients.

This thesis examines the factors affecting audit and non-audit fees and the effects of the joint provision of audit and non-audit services on auditing.

The first essay focuses on environmental factors. Using data for Swedish listed companies over a six year span, including pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis periods, the essay investigates whether changing economic conditions affect the level of fees paid for audit and non-audit services. The finding suggests that auditors increase their risk premium for auditing during a financial crisis andtend to charge higher audit fees as a response to lower risk levels in the post-crisis period. On the other hand, a significant reduction in non-audit fees suggests that companies are less willing to invest in consulting services during thecrisis and post-crisis periods.

The second essay also studies the effects of environmental factors on audit pricing. Using data for financial institutions in 24 European countries, the study examines whether the level of effort spent on the evaluation of fair values is higher for more uncertain fair values.The result suggests that an increasing level of complexity and risk requires greater audit effort. Furthermore, the results showthat the strength of a country’s institutional setting is positively associated with the effort spent on the evaluation of high uncertainty fair value estimates. The finding implies that auditors spend more effort in stronger regulated countries, possibly due to higher potential litigation costs.

The third essay focuses on the factors related to an individual audit partner. Based on the data of publicly listed Swedish companies, it investigates whether partner special competencies are reflected in the prices charged for auditing. The findings show that partner industry expertise and client-specific expertise are associated with higher audit fees. A further finding isthat female partners are considerably under-represented among specialists. However,the under-representation of females among higher qualified partners does not seem to negatively affect their possibilities to earn higher fees.

The fourth essay investigates how the joint provision of audit and non-audit services affects perceived knowledge spillover and audit efficiency. The essay makesuse of survey data from a large sample of Swedish auditors and finds that the levels of communication and trust are positively associated with knowledge spillover. The result further suggests that the information gained from the provision of non-audit services can reduce auditors’ effort (time) spent on different audit procedures, thereby increasing audit efficiency.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between fair value measurement and audit fees. Using a sample of 177 banks from 24 European countries over the period 2008–13, we find that high uncertainty fair value assets are positively related to audit fees. The result is consistent with the suggestion that more complex estimates require greater audit effort. To provide more insight into the impact of fair value measurement on audit fees, we examine this relation under institutional settings with different strength of regulations. The results suggest that the strength of a country's institutional setting is positively related to effort spent on evaluation of higher uncertainty fair value inputs. The finding is consistent with the prediction that auditors expend more effort in more strongly regulated settings due to higher potential litigation costs. Finally, we find that the total proportion of fair-valued assets does not affect audit fees. The result can be attributed to the composition of the total proportion of fair-valued assets which is dominated by low uncertainty (Level 1) inputs.