過去探討審計公費與盈餘管理間關係的研究一直以來持有不同的看法，有的學者認為經濟依存度將導致審計公費對盈餘管理呈正相關，亦即當公司支付愈多之審計公費，會使得會計師更容易與客戶妥協，而允許客戶進行盈餘管理；有的學者則認為審計公費對盈餘管理呈現負向關係，因當會計師收取較高之審計公費，便能夠投入更多人力及資源進行查核工作，使審計品質會更好，較不容許盈餘管理的發生。探討有關審計公費對盈餘管理的文獻相當多，但針對審計公費與實質盈餘管理進行探討的文獻則負諸闕如，因此誘發本研究探討審計公費與實質盈餘管理間是否具關聯性。
本研究以美國上市公司為樣本，樣本期間為2003年至2010年，樣本數為26,539家，自變數為審計公費，應變數為異常的營運現金流量、異常生產成本、以及異常裁決性支出。實證結果發現，審計公費與異常營運現金流量、異常生產成本、以及異常裁決性支出皆呈正相關，顯示當審計公費越高時，經濟依存度提高，則實質盈餘管理發生之可能性則越高。

The relation between audit fees and earnings management has been extensively studied for years, while the results of these studies still remain mixed. Some scholars indicated that the degree of economic dependency would result in the positive correlation between audit fees and earnings management. In other words, the more audit fees the firms paid, the easier the accountants would compromise with the clients and allow their clients to manage the earnings. On the contrary, some scholars considered that audit fees were negatively correlated with earnings management. This might be owing to the higher audit fees the accountants charged; therefore, they could devote more manpower and resources to the audit work, and increase the quality of audit work. The abundant literature on audit quality and earnings management has been produced, yet little mentioned about the relationships between audit quality and real earnings management. Thus, this study aims to investigate whether there exists relationships between these two factors.
The sample of this study consists of public companies in the U.S. ranging from 2003 to 2010. The number of our sample is 26,539. We define audit fees as an independant variable, and the depdent variables are abnormal cash flow from operations (Ab-CFO), abnormal production costs (Ab-PROD), and abnormal discretionary expenditure (Ab-DISEXP). The empirical results show that audit fees are positively associated with Ab-CFO, Ab-PROD, and Ab-DISEXP, which suggests that while audit fees are higher, the economic dependency degree would rise, which leads to higher level of real earnings management.

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