审计师行业专门化、相对市场势力与审计定价

Auditor Industry Specialization,Relative Market Power and Audit Pricing

本文以空间区位竞争理论为基础,探究审计师的市场定位对审计定价的作用机理。研究结果表明:当审计师在一个行业中通过行业专门化投资与审计客户的相对市场位置越近,越容易获得审计溢价;当审计师与竞争者的相对市场势力相差越远,越容易带来审计费用的增加。进一步研究发现,审计师通过行业专门化投资带来了市场势力的增加,在大客户市场审计定价中表现出较为明显的规模经济效应。本文的研究结论不仅丰富了审计市场竞争和审计定价的研究视野,也对会计师事务所竞争能力的提高具有借鉴意义。

Based on prior economic theory on spatial competition,this study explores the mechanism of an auditor’s relative location in a market segment on audit pricing.When an auditor’s industry location is close to its client,it tends to get audit premium.Moreover,the audit fee charged by a incumbent auditor is increasing with the relative market power of the incumbent auditor against its closest competitor.Further,we find that the industry specialization investment can bring competitive market power,and it represents obvious economies of scale that mainly exists in big client market.The conclusion of this study not only extends the academic literature of the competition of audit market and the audit pricing,but also helps audit firms to improve their competitive market power.