The Effect of Estimated Operational Leverage and Contractual Operating Leverage on Audit Fees: With Emphasis on the Moderating Role of Institutional Ownership

Although leverage has always been mentioned as a risk indicator in audit pricing models, the source of the leverage and the effect of ownership structure have not been taken into account.Therefore, this study investigates the asymmetric effects of different types of operating liability leverages, including contractual operating liability leverage and estimated operating liability leverage, compared with financial liability leverage on audit fees as well as the moderating effect of institutional ownership on these relationships.For this purpose, the data were collected from 136 firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2018. The results indicate that there is a direct relationship between financial liability leverage and an inverse relationship between operating leverage (affected by contractual operating leverage) and audit fees. Furthermore, institutional ownership reduces the effect of financial leverage on audit fees and it also increases the effect of operating leverage on audit fees. However, the moderating role of institutional ownership on the relationship between contractual and estimated operating leverage with audit fees is not confirmed. As a whole, the findings show a different role of financial and operational leverage in explaining audit fees.