본 연구는 주기적 감사인 지정제도의 시행 이후 지정 감사인이 자유수임 감사인보다 감사보수 및 감사시간이 높다는 실증증거를 제시한다. 금융당국이 기업에 감사인을 지정해주므로 지정 감사인의 독립성은 향상될 것이며, 지정 감사인은 향후 감사실패로 인한 제재 등 감사위험을 낮추기 위해 보다 철저한 감사를 수행할 것이므로 감사시간이 증가할 것이다. 더불어 감사인 지정의 절차적 특성상 감사인의 감사계약 유치 및 유지에 대한 부담을 낮춰줄 수 있으므로 감사시간의 증가와 함께 감사보수도 증가할 것이다. 2019년부터 2020년까지 유가증권시장 및 코스닥시장에 상장된 기업들을 대상으로 분석한 결과, 지정 감사인은 자유수임 감사인보다 더욱 높은 수준의 감사시간을 투입하고 이에 따라 높은 감사보수를 받는 것으로 나타났다. 비정상 감사보수 및 비정상 감사시간 또한 더욱 높은 것으로 확인되어, 지정 감사인은 지정 여부를 감사위험으로 판단하여 추가적인 감사시간을 투입하고 감사보수를 받는 것으로 나타났다. 또한, 초도감사의 효과를 통제하기 위해 2020년 감사인이 교체된 기업만을 대상으로 추가분석을 수행한 결과, 자율교체 기업의 감사인보다 지정교체 기업의 감사인이 더욱 높은 수준의 감사시간을 투입하고 높은 감사보수를 받는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구의 실증분석 결과는 지정 감사인은 높은 독립성을 견지할 수 있으며 이것이 감사보수 및 감사시간에 반영되는 것을 나타낸다.

We investigated the effectiveness of the auditor periodic designation rule, comparing audit hours and audit fees for pre-and post-implementation of the rule. To increase the independence of external auditors, regulatory authorities had designated external auditors only to firms with poor accounting quality or weak corporate governance. However, by the revision of 'the Act on External Audit of Stock Companies' in 2018, all listed firms and large unlisted firms whose ownership and management are not separated are designated external auditors by the Securities and Futures Commission, an institution under the Financial Supervisory Service. In October 2019, the regulatory authorities designated an external auditor who will audit the financial statements for the fiscal year 2020 for companies that have freely appointed an external auditor for more than 6 years as of 2019. The auditor periodic designation rule which a regulatory authority matches an auditor to a firm having been audited by an auditor freely contracted for more than 6 years would make the designated auditors more independent than those voluntarily appointed by firms. This is because they will be replaced after 3 years and there is no time to form a close relationship with firms before the initial audit. Moreover, the sanctions and litigation risks on auditors were increased due to the revision of ‘the Act on External Audit of Stock Companies’. Therefore, designated auditors are expected to increase their audit hours to mitigate the increased audit risks. And also, designated auditors don’t need to endure the audit fee low-balling on the initial audit to attract and maintain an audit contract, as they do when freely contracting with firms. Accordingly, this study confirmed the effectiveness of the periodic auditor designation rule by verifying that periodic designation auditors invest a higher level of audit hours than freely appointed auditors and receive higher audit fees. Since the Financial Supervisory Service does not disclose firms subject to the periodic auditor designation, this study identified the target firms following Articles 10 and 11 of the revised ‘Act on External Audit of Stock Companies’ and the relevant enforcement ordinance and used them for hypothesis testing. This study investigates whether the difference of audit hours and audit fees exists between the pre-and post-implementation of auditor periodic designation rule in 2020. We find that the audit hours and audit fees of designated auditors are higher than those freely contracted with firms in 2020, analyzing listed firms in Korea from 2019 to 2020. These results mean that the designated auditors increased audit hours and audit fees to reduce audit failure risk. In particular, unlike previous studies related to auditor change, the result that both the audit fees and audit fees per hour increase after the auditor designation means that the designation rule lowers the auditor’s burden of attracting and maintaining the audit contract so that the appropriate audit fee for the high audit hours is achieved. This is a result showing the effect of the designation rule that allows for auditors to be appropriately compensated for their higher audit hours. Next, it was found that the designated auditors had higher abnormal audit fees and abnormal audit hours than the freely appointed auditors. This result is interpreted to mean that the designated auditors invest additional audit hours and receive audit fees because the auditor change by the designation rule is regarded as a future audit risk to them. In an additional analysis, only on the firms who changed auditors in 2020, we conduct the same analysis of audit hours and audit fees pre- and post-auditor designation to control the increase of audit hours on the initial audit year. It was found that the designated auditors performed more aggressive audits than the voluntarily changed auditors. In other words, even after controlling for the increased audit hours due to the initial audit, as the designation rule intended, it was confirmed that the auditor change by the auditor designation rule rather than the voluntary change has a more significant effect on the auditor's audit fee and audit hour. These results indicate that the auditor designation rule would increase the independence of auditors and their future audit risks, and this is reflected in the audit hours and audit fees. This study is meaningful in that it confirmed the effectiveness of the periodic auditor designation rule by presenting empirical evidence for the increased audit fees and audit hours of designated auditors. Also, our findings contribute to the literature investigating the audit quality of designated auditors. This study independently identified target firms subject to the auditor designation and designated auditors, which have received a lot of attention in practice, but which has not been studied much due to the nondisclosure of designated firms and confirmed their audit quality.