全球證券市場活絡，股價波動是全球投資人關注的議題，而投資人為財務報表主要使用者，財務報表可信度仰賴會計師查核，當會計師收取異常審計公費時，可能影響審計品質，亦可能使投資人誤信不實表達之財務報表，進而造成投資人財富損失，故本研究探討異常審計公費對股價崩跌風險的影響。研究樣本以2004年至2019年美國上市公司為對象，實證結果顯示，在控制其他影響異常審計公費與股價崩跌風險的變數後，異常審計公費與股價崩跌風險呈顯著正相關，表示當異常審計公費越高時，可能伴隨著財務報表隱匿較多壞消息，日後造成投資人鉅額財富損失的可能性也愈高。本研究亦發現由非四大會計師事務所查核的公司，異常審計公費對股價崩跌風險的影響更為明顯。

The global securities market operates lively, and investors pay attention to stock price fluctuations. Investors are the main users of financial statements. Financial statement credibility depends on audit by an independent certified public auditor. Abnormal audit fees charged to clients may affect the audit quality and may also cause investors to misbelieve the misrepresented financial statement, which may cause investors to lose wealth. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between abnormal audit fees and stock price. This study uses U.S. listed firm from 2004 to 2019 as the research samples. After controlling for other variables that affect abnormal audit fees and stock price crash risk, we find that abnormal audit fees are positively associated with stock price crash risk. It may mean the higher the abnormal audit fees, the lower the financial statement credibility, which may cause investors to misjudge the investment target and then lose wealth. We also find that the impact of abnormal audit fees on stock price crash risk is more pronounced for companies audited by non-big4 auditors.

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