The Intangibility Paradox in Audit Pricing: Rethinking Valuation Risk and Auditability in U.S. Listed Firms

This study examines the conditional association between recognized intangible asset intensity (INTANG) and external audit fees in a selected sample of U.S.-listed companies. The author-designated study period is 2016–2025; the available estimation sample comprises 1383 firm-year observations from an initial frame of 503 firms. The fiscal-year assignment of individual observations has not yet been independently verified against the row-level dataset. Pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) models control for firm size, financial leverage, profitability, loss status, market-to-book ratio, equity beta, TRBC sector indicators, and relative-fiscal-period indicators. In the reported HC1 benchmark, INTANG is positively correlated with logged audit fees (Pearson r = 0.112), yet carries a negative conditional coefficient (β = −0.300; HC1 SE = 0.121). A 10-percentage-point difference in INTANG corresponds to approximately 3.0% lower predicted fees; a one-standard-deviation difference corresponds to approximately 3.2% lower fees. The adjusted R2 rises from 0.7770 to 0.7780 when INTANG is introduced. These estimates provide a limited descriptive benchmark, not a panel-robust or causal finding: firm-clustered standard errors, actual fiscal-year effects, selection diagnostics, and account-level complexity controls require re-estimation from the underlying firm-year records. The findings motivate more precise measurement of intangible components and audit-engagement complexity, without claiming that lower physical-verification costs, audit-program economies, or knowledge spillovers have been directly identified.