Retail Investor Attention and Audit Pricing

ABSTRACT Using a recently developed proxy for retail investor attention to 10-K filings on EDGAR, we investigate the relationship between retail investor attention and audit fees. We find that retail investor attention is positively related to audit fees and negatively related to earnings quality. Our result is consistent with the notion that managers of firms with high retail investor attention are more likely to manipulate earnings. We also find that retail investor attention to 10-K filings is a relatively more important source of firm-specific information for small firms than for large firms. Collectively, we find that retail investor attention plays a significant role in audit pricing. Our results are robust even after controlling for omitted variable bias, endogeneity, and alternative retail investor attention measures. JEL Classifications: M41; M42.