Download or read book The Relationship Between Audit Quality and Competition at the Intersection of the Large and Small Audit Firm Markets written by Jeanne-Claire Alyse White and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Spatial Competition at the Intersection of the Large and Small Audit Firm Markets written by Kenneth L. Bills and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper, we study spatial competition in the U.S. audit market while accounting for its two-tiered nature. We provide evidence on the differential impact that market share distances within and between the players in the large and small audit markets have on competition. We find that the market share distance from small audit firm competitors has a greater effect on the Big 4's audit fees than distances from other Big 4 competitors. This finding suggests that small audit firms play a significant part in the competitive landscape in local markets. Further, we find that audit fees are increasing with the distance between a small audit firm and its closest competing small audit firm while audit fees are decreasing with the distance between a small audit firm and its closest competing large audit firm. This suggests that while obtaining separation in market space from competing small audit firms reduces competitive pressure from other small audit firms, as a small audit firm gets closer to the market space of a large audit firm it is perceived as being more like the larger audit firm and is able to obtain a fee premium like that attained by the larger audit firms.
Download or read book Auditor Size and Audit Quality Revisited written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The objective of this thesis is to revisit the notion of audit quality and investigate how it is related to auditor size and the structure of the auditing industry. Specifically, I propose a model of audit firm competition where both audit quality and auditor size are endogenous and predict how market characteristics, namely market size and investor protection regime, affect the structure of the auditing industry and differences between Big-4 and Non-Big-4 audit quality and fees. I show that Big-4 audit firms compete mostly on audit value (i.e., quality and price) through investments in audit technology, the level of which is increasing in both market size and investor protection. Consistent with my predictions, empirical results for the U.S. audit market, where investor protection is held constant across local markets, confirm that the audit industry is characterised as a natural oligopoly dominated by the higher quality Big-4 audit firms. More importantly, I find that Big-4 audit value is increasing in market size. In particular, Big-4 audit quality, relative to Non-Big-4 audits is constant in market size while Big-4 audit fee premium is decreasing in market size. I also present detailed hypotheses adapted to a cross-country setting to empirically evaluate the impact of investor protection regimes on characteristics of the audit industry and the audit product. Although I leave to future research actual empirical testing, preliminary evidence reviewed from other studies generally supports my hypotheses. My thesis has direct policy implications as it provides key insights about the audit industry, how audit firms compete and how the industry evolves. Taken together, my results imply that the audit industry is naturally concentrated yet remains overall competitive. That is, Big-4 audit quality and fees are not adversely affected, thus far, by the high level of auditor concentration and Big-4 market power. Accordingly, recent concerns about high auditor concentration,
Download or read book Disruption in the Audit Market written by Krish Bhaskar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focussing on the dominance of the Big Four auditing firms – PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG – this concise volume provides an authoritative critical assessment of the state and future of the audit market, currently the subject of much debate and the focus of significant government enquiries. Drawing on extensive research and a vast collection of evidence from interviews with insiders, experts and users, it explores the key issues of audit quality, independence, choice and the growing expectation gap. Just as disruptive technologies are overturning other established sectors, this book explores their impact on accounting, financial reporting and auditing. It questions whether the Big Four-dominated audit market is prepared not only for the inevitable disruption of new technologies, but also the challenges of negative public perceptions, cynicism about regulation and demands for greater transparency. In the context of increasing high-profile corporate failures, this book provides a compelling scrutiny of the industry’s failings and present difficulties, and the impact of future disruption. At this crucial time, it will be of great interest to students, researchers and professionals in accounting and auditing, as well as policy makers and regulators.
Download or read book The Economics of Audit Quality written by Benito Arrunada and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on market mechanisms which protect quality in the provision of audit services. The role of public regulation is thus situated in the context defmed by the presence of these safeguard mechanisms. The book aims to contribute to a better understanding of these market mechanisms, which helps in defining the con tent of rules and the function of regulatory bodies in facilitating and strengthening the protective operation of the market. An analysis at a more general level is provided in the three chapters making up Part 1. In the four chapters of Part 2, on the other hand, this analysis is applied to a particular problem to determine how those non-audit services often provided by auditors to their audit clients should be regulated. Finally, Chapter 8 contains a summary of the analysis and conclusions of the work. The conclusion with regard to non-audit services is that their provision generates beneficial effects in terms of costs, technical competence, professional judgment and competition and, moreover, need not prejudice auditor independence or the quality of these services. This as sessment leads, in the normative sphere, to recommending a legislative policy aimed at facilitating the development and use of safeguards provided by the free action of market forces. Regulation should thus aim to enable the parties-audit firms, self-regulatory bodies and audit clients-to discover through competitive market interaction both the most efficient mix of services and the corresponding quality safeguards, adjusting for the costs and benefits of each possibility.
Download or read book Price Competition Within the Large Audit Firm Oligopoly written by Scott Whisenant and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study audit pricing and quality for companies that switch from one BigN firm to another. In addition to present day policy interest in the competitiveness and quality of the large audit firm / public company market, and longstanding policy interest in the pricing and quality of initial audit engagements, our motivation stems from contrary predictions in the theoretical literature and mixed evidence in the empirical literature. We collect a series of balanced panel datasets of BigN auditees from the first eight years of disclosure of U.S. audit fees and estimate a series of fixed-effect regressions. We report evidence of economically significant discounting of initial audits for companies that switch among BigN firms but that audit fees then increase substantially for the second-year audit. To the extent restatements and going-concern opinions are adequate proxies, our results do not suggest differential audit quality for companies that pay lower audit fees when switching among BigN firms. Overall, our paper is the first to study BigN switching with a comprehensive sample that spans several years using a panel data design, to document economically significant amounts of initial audit fee discounts (that vary over time in a manner consistent with recent audit market changes and primarily vanish the very next year) and to examine the association between initial audit fee discounts and multiple proxies for audit quality.
Download or read book The Future of Audit written by Keith A. Houghton and published by ANU E Press. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 773 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when increased independence requirements for auditors, legal backing for auditing standards, and increased audit documentation requirements have occurred, this book examines key issues in the market for audit services in Australia. It investigates issues including: the understandability of audit and the state of the audit expectations gap; auditors' business acumen and industry expertise; the auditors' use of materiality; whether or not the increasingly prescriptive nature of auditing is creating a distraction from the 'real' audit task and stifling auditors' judgement; whether or not CLERP 9 reforms involving audit partner rotation and restrictions on non-audit service provision are efficient and effective and reactions to the increasing scrutiny of auditors and audit firms by regulators. With its thorough coverage of contemporary issues, this book intersperses the authors' summaries, interpretations and recommendations with the perceptions, expressed in their own words in order to faithfully convey their candid assessments, of users of audit reports, purchasers and suppliers of the audit product, auditing standard setters and regulators of the audit market.
Download or read book Audit Quality written by Jonas Tritschler and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arising from the author’s experience as a practicing CPA, this book is quite different from other research in this field, as it confronts the subject of audit quality from a pragmatic perspective. The first goal of Jonas Tritschler is to develop an audit quality metric on national audit firm level. Financial reporting errors, as detected by the German enforcement institutions during examinations, which subsequently are published in the German Federal Gazette by the involved companies, are the data basis for this measurement. Using the developed audit quality metric, the second goal of this study is to analyze audit quality differences of selected audit firms by comparing their deployed audit input factors such as employee’s competence (ratio of certified professionals to total audit staff), experience of employees (average tenure of employees in years) and client-specific experience (client fluctuation rate). Results indicate a correlation between audit quality according to the developed metric and the operationalized audit input factors mentioned above.
Download or read book The Joint Impact of Structural Market Characteristics on Audit Quality and Audit Pricing written by Othar Kordsachia and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study explores the association between audit market concentration, audit quality, and audit fees in US audit markets. It contributes to the extant literature by modelling the interactive effects of the structural characteristics of audit markets on audit quality and pricing. Based on a large sample of audit clients from 138 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) from 2004 to 2016, this study provides instance for an overall positive (negative) association between audit concentration and audit quality (audit pricing). However, improvements in audit quality are less significant in large markets, where auditors have a greater number of clients, even when concentration is low. Concerning the pricing of audit services, greater concentration leads to competitive cost efficiencies (lower audit fees) because of improved economies of scale; however, this is only when audit markets are small. When markets are large and concentrated, greater audit market concentration is associated with higher (monopolistic) audit fees. This is indicative of a trade-off between economies of scale and market domination.
Download or read book Strategic Decision Behavior and Audit Quality of Big and Small Audit Firms in a Tendering Process written by Martin Fochmann and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We investigate the strategic decision making of audit firms in a tendering process. In particular, we are interested in how audit firms behave to acquire audit clients and which audit quality is ensured. Our main findings are manifold. First, if two big audit firms are competing, we do not observe that each firm tries to acquire all clients. However, if one big and one small audit firm are competing, we find evidence that the big audit firm generally apply strategies to acquire all available clients. In contrast, the small audit firm uses a clear “Guerilla Strategy” which means that the firm concentrates only on few clients whereas the other clients are almost ignored. Second, small audit firms are better off if more clients do exist in the tendering process. Thus, the legislator should ensure that more audit clients are tendered if the competitiveness of smaller audit firms should be enhanced. Third, in a situation in which the competitive advantage of big audit firms increases over-proportionally, we do not observe that big audit firms are able to decrease the market share of small audit firms markedly or are even able to push small audit firms out of the market. Fourth, we find that the quality level of an audit is higher if the client is acquired by a small audit firm. This implies that increasing the number of smaller audit firms could increase the quality level of the audit market.
Download or read book Two Essays on Auditing Quality in China s Audit Market for Listed Firms written by Chuntao Li and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Two Essays on Auditing Quality in China's Audit Market for Listed Firms" by Chuntao, Li, 李春濤, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of the thesis entitled Two Essays on Auditing Quality in China's Audit Market for Listed Firms Essay I: Determinants of Audit Opinion: Evidence from China Essay II: Audit Firm Size and Perception of Audit Quality: Evidences from China Submitted By Li, Chuntao For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy the University of Hong Kong in November, 2007 The first essay documents a continuous relation between audit firm size and the issuing of qualified opinions in China using a panel data set of audit firms and listed firms from 2001 to 2003. The relation is robust after controlling for a set of confounding factors and dealing with the endogeneity issues. It is also robust when we exclude audit firms involving foreign partners or private client firms from our samples. Our results indicate that the audit-firm-size effect as suggested by DeAngelo (1981) and Dye (1993) is applicable to audit markets that has not yet been dominated by a few very large players as well as audit markets where client firms are partially state-owned entities. 2The second essay analyzes how the stock market perceives the quality of audit among a number of small sized audit firms in China's emerging audit market. By using earnings response coefficient (ERC) as a measure of perceived audit quality, this paper examines the continuous relationship between audit firm size and the market perceived audit quality in China. We find a positive association between audit size and investor's perception of earnings quality. That is, stock market reacts stronger for unexpected earnings audited by larger audit firms. This effect is significant after controlling for listed firms' financial situations and ownership characteristics. This result indicates that audit firms of varying size in China are not homogeneous in quality. Relatively larger audit firms are perceived to be of higher quality by investors. 3 DOI: 10.5353/th_b3955783 Subjects: Auditing - China Auditing - Standards - China
Download or read book Auditing Teams written by Mara Cameran and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent audit failures which have rocked financial markets worldwide have accentuated the need for a better understanding of the link between risk, control and audit quality; as well as emphasising the need to open the "black box" of the ways auditing firms actually function. Reflecting these imperatives, Auditing Teams unravels the organizational and management issues in audit firms that are key to achieving effectiveness in service provision. Specifically, this key research reflects upon the relevance and dynamics of auditing teams and their impact on auditing quality, and specifically responding to the recent claim from regulators which highlights auditing team characteristics as the source of wide variations in quality. By leveraging different perspectives – auditing, management accounting, organization and psychology – to investigate auditing teams and basing on evidence collected from the professional world, this book will provide a unique insight into the role of auditing teams on audit quality. It will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students in auditing, as well as to practitioners and regulators in the field.
Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Auditing written by David Hay and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Auditing has been a subject of some controversy, and there have been repeated attempts at reforming its practice globally. This comprehensive companion surveys the state of the discipline, including emerging and cutting-edge trends. It covers the most important and controversial issues, including auditing ethics, auditor independence, social and environmental accounting as well as the future of the field. This handbook is vital reading for legislators, regulators, professionals, commentators, students and researchers involved with auditing and accounting. The collection will also prove an ideal starting place for researchers from other fields looking to break into this vital subject.
Download or read book Fee Competition Among Big 4 Auditors and Audit Quality written by Sharad Asthana and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both the GAO (2003, 2008) and the US Treasury (2008) have implied that the Big 4 dominated US audit market lacks competition. More recently, the PCAOB has expressed a somewhat different concern, i.e., that because audit committees may be primarily interested in negotiating a lower audit fee (rather than championing higher audit quality) for their clients, fee competition in the US audit market could pressure the incumbent auditor to compromise on audit quality (Doty 2011). We utilize the notion of counterfactual fees chargeable by auditors to assess fee competition and investigate competing views on the relation between fee competition among Big 4 auditors and audit quality in US local audit markets. To operationalize fee competition at the client-level in the context of each local audit market, we compute a separate counterfactual audit fee that would be charged by every other Big 4 auditor for that particular engagement and use the minima of the counterfactuals. We validate our audit fee competition metric by showing a positive relation with the incumbent auditor's switching risk. Collectively, our findings suggest that fee competition is useful as a mechanism for improving audit quality in the highly concentrated US audit market, albeit only in local audit markets where the incumbent auditor has below-median market power and only for higher quality clients. Overall, our findings speak to the interplay between fee competition and auditor incentives and is are of potential interest to regulators such as the PCAOB concerned about competition in US audit markets.
Download or read book Audit Regulations Audit Market Structure and Financial Reporting Quality written by Christopher Bleibtreu and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-24 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Audit Regulations, Audit Market Structure, and Financial Reporting Quality provides a structured overview of the empirical and analytical literature on the effects of audit market regulations. After a short introduction, the monograph is organized as follows. Chapter II addresses the structure of the audit markets of industrialized countries. First presenting an overview of the concentration metrics used to describe the structure of an audit market or a market segment, then providing the empirical findings on audit market concentration at the national level and presenting an overview of the main reasons that led to the currently high degree of concentration. Chapter III summarizes the reasons why regulators worldwide consider a high degree of concentration to be a concern. In particular, it reviews the regulator's assumption that a high degree of concentration inevitably leads to a low degree of competition and to the corresponding effects of low audit quality and high audit fees. It also provides an overview of the empirical findings on the association between concentration and audit quality and fees, respectively. Chapter IV introduces the mandatory audit firm rotation, the prohibition on the joint supply of audit and non-audit services, and joint audits as examples for regulations that are likely to have both incentive and market structure effects. Chapter V summarizes the empirical findings on the effects of these regulations on audit quality and market structure. Chapter VI summarizes models that regard the market structure as given. The results from these models show that the effects of regulations are not straightforward, but depend on various factors related to the auditor, the client, and the legal environment. Chapter VII gives an overview of analytical research that simultaneously considers incentive effects and market structure effects. It also provides a brief overview of industrial organization models that seem suitable to expand the models applied to investigate the effects of audit regulations. Chapter VIII concludes and highlights avenues for future research.
Download or read book The Selection of Auditor Firms by Companies in the New Issue Market written by Michael Firth and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Product Differentiation in Auditing written by Dan A. Simunic and published by Canadian Certified General Accountants' Research Foundation = Fondation de recherche de l'Association des comptables généraux licenciés du Canada. This book was released on 1987 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fundamental question with respect to the market for audit services is whether or not such services are homogeneous across suppliers ... In this monograph, we review the basic principles and findings concerning differentiated product markets as they have been developed in the economic literature. Using Lancaster's characteristics framework, we posit that the audit service contains several attributes which are valued by top management. A key attribute is "credibility", which is communicated by an audit firm's brand name and is identified with the power of an auditor's test ... We posit that, along with other product characteristics, the power of test varies systematically across audit firms. Hypotheses concerning the demand for different audit service specifications (qualities) are developed in a context where companies are changing their capital structure through an initial public offering of common shares. These hypotheses are tested using a sample of 469 U.S. corporations which first "went public" during 1981. The results are consistent with the existence of differential audit services.
