Audit partner facial structure, audit pricing, and audit quality

Research in biology finds that men with more masculine faces are associated with greater ambition, a stronger desire to win, and lower interpersonal trust. We use the latest facial characteristic measurement techniques to examine the consequences of audit partner facial masculinity for both audit pricing and audit quality. Using a hand-collected dataset of audit partner photographs, we find that partners with more masculine faces are associated with significantly higher audit fees. In addition, we find that partner facial masculinity is associated with higher discretionary accruals and lower propensity to issue going concern opinions to financially distressed clients. Therefore, while more masculine-faced audit partners earn a fee premium, they appear to be associated with lower audit quality.