THE WINNER'S CURSE IN THE INDEPENDENT AUDIT PUBLIC CONTRACTS
Independent Audit; Winner 's Curse; Quantile Regression; Auditors' Fees.
Independent auditing is considered a factor that reduces the asymmetry of accounting information for the market. Its independence is a relevant indicator of the quality of its work performed, which seeks to ensure the quality of the accounting information disclosed by companies. The auditor's remuneration is one of the conditions studied that support and influence their independence and, consequently, the quality of the independent audit. Thus, this research aims to analyze the public hiring of independent auditors by state companies under the direct control of the Union that are carried out in the electronic auction modality and the determinants for the occurrence of debasement of audit fees. Anchored in the Theory of Auctions and the Winner's Curse, the study was carried out with a quantitative approach, resulting in a sample of forty-six state-owned companies analyzed, totaling seventy-three observations of contracts carried out in the period 2010 to 2020 documentary research from the minutes of electronic auctions and the collected data were analyzed using Multiple Linear Regression estimated by the method of Ordinary Least Squares – OLS – and complementary test via Quantile Regression. The tests were performed using the statistical software STATA®, version 14.0. The results respond positively to the research hypothesis that the contracting procedure through auction causes a level of competition between auditing firms, increasing the variation of the estimated price and that actually contracted, which positively affects the occurrence of debasement of audit fees of the state-owned companies and the winner's curse for auditing firms. Regarding the hypothesis about the impact of the debasement of fees on the quality of audits carried out in these companies, using earnings management as a proxy, the tests were statistically inconclusive to determine causality and correlation between the existence of degradation and earnings management. However, further testing through OLS Regression model without the constant, the regression result indicates significance for the debasement in relation to earnings management practice. As the main contributions of the study, elements were obtained for professional and regulatory concerns about the effectiveness of the electronic auction for contracting technical independent audit services.