Can price discrimination improve the performance of online retail platforms?

Online retail platforms are the core of online retail activities, but due to increased competition among the platforms, traditional sources of revenue such as the membership and transaction fees alone cannot guarantee platform profitability. Thus, platform enterprises are looking for other sources of revenue. In this article, we focus on the role of value-added services fees charged by platforms. Specifically, we show that price discrimination exercised by platform enterprises in value-added services fees can increase the user access scale, platform profit as well as the social welfare.     

数字金融、企业风险承担与审计费用

数字金融是金融生态环境不断优化的重要引擎，对实体经济的发展有着重大影响。选取2011—2020年中国A股非金融类上市公司数据为样本，从企业风险承担的角度实证研究了数字金融对审计费用的影响机制。研究结果发现：数字金融不仅会显著增加企业支付的审计费用，还能够通过提升企业风险承担水平增加企业支付的审计费用。进一步研究发现，数字金融的覆盖广度和使用深度均能通过企业风险承担增加审计师收取的审计费用；分组检验发现，数字金融通过企业风险承担增加审计费用的作用在非国有企业中更加明显，数字金融对审计费用的增加作用在东部地区更大；此外，审计投入也在数字金融对审计费用的影响中起到中介作用。     

The Effect of Client Industry Agglomerations on Auditor Industry Specialization

Prior research on auditor industry specialization documents fee premiums for local audit offices that are industry specialists. This research assumes that the effects of specialization are uniform across markets. We examine industry specialization based on the economic theory of industry agglomeration (geographic areas with high industry concentration). Agglomeration economies can facilitate access to knowledge for auditors serving a specific industry in those locations. We find that industry specialists in agglomerations earn a fee premium in excess of specialists in other markets. We find that nonspecialist offices in agglomerations also earn fee premiums in that industry when compared to nonspecialists in other markets even when controlling for these groups’ absolute share of the national market. We also address whether or not this expertise can be shared among offices in an agglomeration specialist's firm. We find that audit offices that have easy connections to a within-firm office in an agglomerated market can earn a fee premium relative to more distant offices, suggesting a benefit from knowledge transfer. This fee premium accrues to offices that would not be considered a specialist using traditional market share measures in a given industry. These findings indicate that the benefit of industry specialization depends on more than local market share.     

内控鉴证与财务报告质量——兼论内控审计是否比内控审核更有效

利用沪深A股非金融类上市公司2007—2013年内控审计、审核报告数据，研究发现：经过内控鉴证的公司，财务报告质量显著高于未经内控鉴证的公司；经过内控审计的公司，财务报告质量显著高于经过内控审核的公司。这不仅证明内控鉴证能够提高企业财务报告的质量，而且说明内控审计比内控审核更有效地提升了财务报告质量，可见，我国内控规范体系以内控审计替代内控审核是必要且有效的。     

Does information asymmetry predict audit fees?

This study investigates whether and how information asymmetry in the stock market affects the quantum of audit fees paid by auditees. It is based on a sample of 218 US publicly traded companies and adopts two well-established proxies for information asymmetry, namely bid-ask spread (BAS) and probability of informed trading (PIN). Empirical results provide evidence that, after controlling for all main audit fees determinants, information asymmetry is positively related to the quantum of audit fees paid. Overall, evidence supports the contention that less transparent companies convey higher audit risk, and therefore auditors require higher compensation.