定价管制、审计费用与审计质量——来自我国A股上市公司的经验数据

Pricing Regulation,Audit Fees and Audit Quality:Evidence from China's A Share Listed Companies

长期以来,我国实行审计定价管制制度。然而,关于该制度有效性的研究却比较有限。针对这一研究议题,以2001-2013年我国A股上市公司为研究对象进行分析,结果显示:(1)审计定价管制提高了会计师事务所的审计收费水平,平均每提高一个管制等级将导致审计收费提高4.2%;(2)审计收费与审计质量之间呈正相关关系,但是在审计定价管制严格的地区,这种正相关关系被显著弱化,表明审计定价管制通过提高审计收费达到了提高审计质量的政策目的。进一步的研究显示,审计定价管制对审计收费和审计质量的提高作用主要存在于非国际四大会计师事务所和非国有企业中,而在国际四大会计师事务所和国有企业中,其效果并不明显。

Although the audit pricing regulation has been implemented in China for a long period,the research on its effectiveness is limited. With the sample of China’s A share listed companies from 2001 to 2013,we examine the effect of audit pricing regulation on audit fees and audit quality,and find that：（ 1） audit pricing regulation significantly improves audit fees claimed by the audit firm; in particular,one scale increase in the regulation strictness is associated with a 4. 2% increase in audit fees on average;（ 2） there is a positive association between audit fees and audit quality,but this relationship is significantly weakened in regions with strict regulation on audit pricing,which means audit pricing regulation can improve audit quality through increasing audit fees. Further analyses indicate that such an effect is only significant in non-big four audit firms and non-SOEs,but not holds in big four audit firms and SOEs.