“低价揽业”与审计市场的价格竞争

"Low Balling" and Price Competition in Audit Market

采用2001—2005年A股审计市场的面板数据,对审计市场的"低价揽业"行为进行实证检验。结果表明,在审计师更换当年,会计师事务所对客户给予了明显的价格优惠。进一步的分析发现,这种价格折扣主要发生在相同质量等级的事务所间的审计更换。因此,在消除审计质量差异的情况下,我国A股证券审计市场出现了普遍的"低价揽客"行为。然而,与美国审计市场出现的25%的初始价格折扣相比,我国的初始价格折扣更低。这意味着在审计费披露更为透明的市场上,"低价揽业"行为会受到有效抑制。因此,加强审计费披露机制可以作为政府直接干预的替代机制,对审计市场的价格竞争进行更有效的监管。

We empirically test the ＂low bailing＂ behavior of audit market with the panel data of Chinese audit market during 2001 - 2005. Results indicate a significant price cutting in the initial engagement year. Further study shows that price cutting was mainly found in the auditor switch between accounting firms providing the same audit quality. Therefore, Chinese audit market has indeed universal low bailing behavior. However, the level of the price cutting in Chinese audit market is lower than that in Amercian audit market. Therefore the mechanism of publicizing audit fee will be an effective substitute of government intervene mechanism to regulate price competition in the audit market.